


To Err(or) Is Human

by rAnines (clockworkcorvids)



Series: robowhump 30 day challenge [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: (but with androids), 30 Day RoboWhump Prompt Challenge, Android Dehumanization (Detroit: Become Human), Android Gore (Detroit: Become Human), Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Angst, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, Artist Markus (Detroit: Become Human), As it should be, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Computer Viruses, Deviant CyberLife Tower Connor | RK800-60, Dog Fighting, Electrocution, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feral Behavior, Feral Cyberlife Tower Connor | RK800-60, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Heavy Angst, Holding Hands, Hurt/Comfort, I blame the Android Whump Big Bang Server for this, M/M, Mild Gore, Muzzles, Needles, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Original Character, Panic Attacks, Present Tense, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Sleep Deprivation, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death, Trans Character, Trans Gavin Reed, Trans Male Character, Whump, canon is treated like a suggestion rather than an order, dont make fun of me for my canon/oc shenanigans it's called having fun, gratuitous messing with the canon timeline, me? projecting? it's more likely than you'd think, my favorite tag uwu, nines is only occasionally feral in this one, no beta we die like men, our hearts are compatible, panic disorder, surprising everyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2020-09-08 02:23:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 37,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20280064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockworkcorvids/pseuds/rAnines
Summary: 30 Day RoboWhump Prompt Challenge; pretty much exactly what it says on the tin.Reed900, the RK bros, and Hank being a good dad to his android sons will all be recurring features in this.Note: These are not all in chronological order, nor are they all tied together. Each individual chapter can be read as a standalone unless noted otherwise, so you can pick-and-choose what you want to read.**EDIT: im splitting the 30 day challenge into two works - this, for the dbh stuff, and a second work, for all the remaining prompts, which i will be attempting to complete for the deus ex fandom. i did this because, while i am still in the dbh fandom in a limited capacity, i will not be writing anything for it in the near future**





	1. Low Power Cells

**Author's Note:**

> im jumping on the Pain Train and doing the [ 30 Day RoboWhump Challenge ](https://whumptopia.tumblr.com/post/183278577717/30-day-robowhump-prompt-challenege-most-whump) as a precursor to/inspiration for the [ Android Whump Big Bang ](https://android-whump-big-bang.tumblr.com/post/186802497560/announcing-the-android-whump-big-bang-challenge-of)
> 
> starting with my good friend sleep deprivation! the prompt was low power cells, which led me to thinking about how androids 'recharge' with stasis, which led me to android sleep deprivation.....  
in my defense, i wrote this in the middle of the night while extremely sleep deprived myself, although i'm not messing my circadian rhythm up _quite_ as much as connor is.  
seriously, folks, at least get something approaching a healthy amount of sleep when you can. it makes a difference. [ here's ](https://hnb4136nxla3hte31l4a9zb1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/sleep-deprivation-full.png)a fun little infographic about the effects of sleep deprivation that i used as a reference while writing this and also subsequently got slightly stressed about while trying to calculate what stage of it i'm at

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for suicidal thoughts and self-harm/self-destructive behavior in this chapter. stay safe.

Stasis is the android version of sleep. It could even be compared to charging a computer, but the more accurate analogy would technically be shutting said computer down.

The human body, computers, and androids all more or less do the same things when they are left running for too long: they slow down, incrementally lose control of basic functions, and are eventually forced to shut down or risk death. 

One of the more noticeable effects in all of the above is compromisation of memory. Humans have short-term memory, computers have RAM, and androids have something that is closer in composition to RAM but functions more like a human’s short-term memory.

Most androids can go without rest for longer than humans, and Connor can go for longer than most androids, but he starts to notice adverse effects after a week of charting his biometrics.

He knows it’s bad. He knows even before the first error messages that what he’s doing is illogical and unnecessary and completely uncalled for, but when have any of those things ever stopped him?  <strike> Before he was a deviant, that was when. </strike>

And he’d be lying if he said some twisted part of him doesn’t enjoy―or at least appreciate―the pain, anyways. Pain is one of the key things that makes him alive, that makes him  _ human _ . It’s nobody’s business if he sometimes considers it  _ the  _ thing that makes him human. It reminds him that he’s alive.

And alright, there are other ways to feel alive, but he’s been getting away with this for a week now and  _ nobody has noticed _ . It makes him wonder if anyone cares, and he wants to find out, so be it if he has to do that the hard way.

Five days is a normal―not necessarily  _ recommended _ , but passable―amount of time for him to go without stasis, and he’s been lucky. Or maybe unlucky, depending on how he decides to interpret the situation. Connor was expecting Nines to notice, if not as proof that he actually cares for his brother then just because he notices  _ everything _ , but it seems that chance is playing with Connor. 

On the sixth day, a Wednesday, he’s feeling fine despite the fact that his system suggests he enter stasis tonight in order to remain in optimal condition, and Nines has been losing his mind over he and Gavin’s latest case since the fourth day. Nines spends that night at Gavin’s house instead of coming home, a choice which Connor thinks might not be entirely due to the urgency of that case, but that is neither here nor there.

Hank, meanwhile, has not noticed a thing, because there is not a thing  _ for  _ him to notice, not yet. As far as he or any other human can tell, Connor is in peak condition, and it’s not like Connor has been wandering around the house in the wee hours to prove otherwise. That would be cheating; Hank has to find out on his own.

When he should be going to sleep, Connor shuts himself in his room and stays there. In order to prevent his highly efficient system from detecting his idleness and gently forcing him into stasis, he reads, and he replays memories, and he looks at case files even though he isn’t working on anything too difficult right now, and he charts his biometrics on an hourly basis.

He spent the entirety of the third night reading about the effects of sleep deprivation on humans and running comparisons between the affected parts of a human or other biological system and his own analogous parts. An impressive amount of studies have been done on the effects of certain environmental factors on androids, and of course he has a copy of the testing data that pertains to his own model, but nobody has ever tested sleep deprivation on androids before. His system recommends entering stasis at  _ least  _ every five nights, but that data is from simulations and observations, not anything on the level of a scientific journal.

Maybe he’ll send his data to Elijah Kamski, if it’s interesting. 

If he doesn’t die first.

On the fourth day, Connor realized that if he dies (which he most definitely might if he keeps this up for long enough) that’ll be the ultimate proof that he’s alive, at least until it means nothing. With the state of Cyberlife after the uprising, he won’t get another body if this one gives out. He’ll die, and he’ll have proved that he’s alive, but he won’t  _ be _ alive anymore to do anything about it.

And now it’s been a week; it’s the seventh day and Nines is too distracted by that case to hold more than a brief conversation with him, and Hank tells him in a tone of slight concern to be more careful when he trips on a particularly bumpy bit of sidewalk, and his short-term memory has some obvious gaps in it that keep prompting error messages on his HUD. Before he became a deviant, error messages were the closest thing he had to feeling pain, so even now they’re like a second form of it, and even though they’re not as real as actual thing they’re still real enough to remind Connor that  _ he is alive _ , and  _ he is slowly killing himself _ , and  _ nobody has noticed _ .

He doesn’t even really want to die, if he’s being honest. He just wants to know that someone cares about him, and he wants to prove to himself that he’s alive, and he’s achieved the second goal but not the first, so he can’t stop now.

It’s the tenth day, when he’s missed two stasis cycles and he really should have done at least five by now, when he finally snaps. Hank pulls him aside in the break room and says, “Kid, you’ve been acting weird. What’s up?”

Aside from some fatigue, he’s not even showing excessive signs of his sleep deprivation, despite the fact that his short-term memory has almost completely stopped functioning and his stress levels have been hovering around an average 75% for the last few days. 

So he tilts his head in feigned confusion and says “What do you mean, Hank?” 

Hank makes some kind of incoherent gesture with one hand, the other firmly gripping Connor’s shoulder. “All distant and shit, and you keep tripping.”

“I’ve just been a little distracted lately; I had a software update the other day and it took some getting used to. It’s nothing to worry about,” Connor tries, despite the fact that forming such a coherent few sentences saps what little energy he has left. He wonders if Hank is worried enough to keep pressing or if he’ll take the bait.

Hank narrows his eyes. “I’m not stupid, Connor,” he says, tone slightly perturbed. “I know pain when I see it. You―” his voice softens, and he loosens his grip on Connor’s shoulder “―you can tell me what’s wrong.”

Connor can’t help it; he smiles. It’s a pained one, though, more him laughing at himself than actually being happy Hank has noticed

“Did it really take you that long to notice?”

Hank’s face goes from slightly concerned to outright disturbed in record time.

“What the hell have you been doing?”

“Making sure I’m alive,” Connor says, grin widening, and he must be a little delirious right now to think this is funny. “Figuring out who actually cares about me.”

“ _ Connor _ ,” Hank breathes, “did you think I don’t care?”

Connor shrugs. In hindsight, he’d never  _ actually  _ thought that Hank didn’t care, he had just―spurred on by his own desire to see how alive he really was―entertained the completely illogical notion of it.

Hank shifts forward, then, and pulls Connor into a tight hug. Connor inhales sharply, not sure how to react, and finally lets himself go limp and melt into the embrace. 

Connor didn’t realize how much he loves Hank’s hugs until now.

Connor didn’t realize how much he needs this until now.

Connor didn’t realize how much Hank  _ does  _ care until now.

“Don’t do that, son,” Hank says. “I’ve been where you are before, and I can tell you it’s not just wanting to see if you’re alive, or wanting to see who cares. You’re alive. I care. Plenty of other people care. And none of that matters to that little part of your brain that tells you to hurt yourself. That part of your brain will always find another reason to keep hurting yourself, and you have to realize that.”

Connor remembers when he had first met Hank, how nihilistic the man had been, blocking out his pain with alcohol even though he had known it would only cause him more suffering. He remembers finding Hank’s gun on the kitchen floor, realizing that he’d been playing Russian roulette.

Hank is right.

He slowly lifts his arms and hugs Hank back. 

Neither of them move to pull away until a few moments later, when the door to the break room opens, and a familiar set of footsteps enter the room before stopping suddenly.

Connor looks up, reluctantly steps away from Hank, meets Nines’ concerned grey eyes.

Nines doesn’t say anything; there are times when he doesn’t talk much and this is one of them. He just holds out a hand, and Connor takes it in his own, and they interface. 

It only takes a single breath for Nines to see everything Connor has been feeling for these last ten days, and then he ends the interface and pulls Connor into a hug. This is surprising, to say the least; Nines, who is even less acclimated to  _ feeling _ than Connor is, isn’t typically one to display his emotions. Gavin must be rubbing off on him.

“Hank is right,” he says. Then―and he’s clearly struggling with how to proceed, but he also clearly thinks it’s worth the effort to say this―”I care about you, brother.”

Connor smiles, for real this time. 

He might have been able to hold out for the rest of the day, but after that, Hank and Nines insist on taking him home, and he falls into a comfortable stasis the second he’s in his bed.

He’s needed this.


	2. Vocal Modulator Damage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This isn't a fair fight.

_ STRESS LEVELS ^75% _

_ BIOCOMPONENT #BV53 DAMAGED _

_ BIOCOMPONENT #JR86 DAMAGED _

_ BIOCOMPONENT #EE94 DAMAGED _

Nines is reeling back into damp concrete, panicking, as the man he’s fighting punches him, over and over again, and he may be strong in both body and mind but even he can only take so much.

Warnings of his rapidly increasing stress levels and damage to numerous biocomponents flash in his vision, blinding him, and he’s forced to rely entirely on his other senses as he fights back. 

It wasn’t supposed to go like this. This shouldn’t be happening. None of this is right.

If Nines is going to go down fighting, he at least wants to do so in a respectable way. Getting the thirium beat out of him by a pissed-off lowlife who took him by surprise is not respectable in any way.

Normally, this wouldn’t even be a problem. Normally, he’d be able to take out this man or any other like him in a matter of seconds, and even in the rare events that someone gets the jump on him, Nines has a long and unbroken track record of still winning those fights.

But this time, the man took him by surprise after Nines had already taken enough damage to warrant checking himself into a Cyberlife clinic, and he’s taking advantage of the fact that Nines is alone and overwhelmed and as close to defenseless as he’ll ever be without Amanda being involved.

Gavin had been here at the beginning, but they’d been chasing two perps and they’d been forced to split up, so he doesn’t even have his main line of defense here to help him (not that he’d ever admit out loud that he sees Gavin in such a trusting light, though).

This is not a fair fight.

Nines swings at the man, but his head spins with the sudden movement and he misses, he  _ misses _ , what the hell, he never fucking  _ misses _ but here he is now, and the man has a bent length of pipe in one hand―the old-fashioned metal kind, too, and it’s covered in more rust than a junkyard Roomba―and he pushes Nines back into the wall and socks him in the gut with the pipe.

_ STRESS LEVELS ^85% _

_ BIOCOMPONENT #GL43 DAMAGED _

_ BIOCOMPONENT #WR77 DAMAGED _

_ PLEASE REPORT TO CYBERLIFE FOR ASSISTANCE. _

Well, none of those biocomponents are critical, so that’s a glimmer of hope in a pit of dull disappointment.

The man steps back, and Nines staggers to his feet again, and he calculates his chances of survival if he lunges at the man right now and just holds him down. He’s strong, for sure, but in this state he won’t be able to hold the man down if he tries hard enough to fight back.

Nines has a slightly higher chance of survival if he manages to take the man by surprise, to throw him off his rhythm, but he still isn’t liking the numbers.

If he’s going to die, well, he might as well take his killer down with him.

He lurches forward, jumps on the man, and they both fall to the ground.

He wraps his shaking hands around the man’s neck. He squeezes. The man knees him in the gut (an ineffective action) and then reaches up to pry Nines’ hands away (also an ineffective action).

But apparently this man isn’t done, because he brings back the pipe in the limited space between them and slams it into Nines’ chest, and the pain that jolts through his thirium pump is enough to make him loosen his grip and fall back onto his knees.

This is a very effective action.

The man scrambles to his feet, and Nines’ eyes aren’t tracking this in real time and his senses aren’t aligned, so he doesn’t realize what’s happening until the pipe has already connected with his throat and he’s freezing up from shock and the man is turning, running away, leaving Nines alone in this alley.

On one hand, it’s good to see him gone, but on the other hand, Nines is dying over here and he’s not exactly in a place where people are going to notice that.

_ STRESS LEVELS ^95% _

_ W͇͜A̙͓͈̺̬̟̝̥ͅR̲͉̹͕̤N͍̦̰̮̯̼̜͘Ị̸̡͍N̢̡̰̗͍͉̕G̘͢͟:͍̗̙̪̯͢ ̵̢̰̠S̸̡҉̝̮̥͇̯̱̯ͅT̡̬̜̗̞̥̣͙̠R͍͇E̵̶͙Ṣ̵͎͜S̨̨̻͔͇̤̙̪͖̩͖͞ ̙̙̫L̛̗̯̥̣E̞͓͙̠̟͡V̵̢̞͔̫̻̰E̵̡̪͔͖̲̥̤L͏͇̯̖̠͚͖S̺ ̞͈ͅC̵̩͔͎̭R͈̝͎̭̯I̛̩̙͠T͓̘͇̦̫̙̝̪I̭̞̲̮̟̻̝͍͞C̝Ạ̵̱̦͠L͙͚͕͓ _

_ ͏̥̥͎̱͕̝̮͝ͅB̵̫͔͢I̵҉̢̗͙̘͔O̪̹̮̣̭͕̻̞C͏̶͍̙̣͉͖̼̝͈O͔̣̭͕͕M̗̩̘̫ͅP͇̜̯̰̥̹̝͢͞O̵͉̞̼͎N̹̹̖̟E҉̼̣N̷̴͇̹̩̲͓͇̟T̶̸͕̩̳̱̤͕͢ ̟͎̱̠̺̥̦̟̜#̫̯̞̱̠̬͜͢V̡̛̹̫̠̝̠͚͔͚M͉̲̺̝̕6̦͠0͕̹̮͉͖̯͡ ͙͢D̪͚̱̫̣̻̦̕͞A̬̭͟M̵̟̹̫̫̦̦͠A̸̡͚͍͚̟G͏̶̻͉̳͙̙̤̖E̳̕͜͡D̫̲̦̲̖͔͉̕͡ _

̴̢̥̝͔͙̬̕ͅ

_ Oh _ . 

Oh, that’s his vocal modulator. That isn’t good.

His thirium levels are dropping, too, he needs repairs and he needs them  _ quickly _ ,  <strike> he needs Gavin </strike> he needs to find Gavin where the hell is Gavin why hasn’t he come back yet did the other perp get him is he dead ishedead _ ish e d e a d ishedeadi̡͚͢s̤̰͘͞h̨̢͚̼̻̠̦̜̘͠ḛ̢̮͕̰̰̪̝̲̩d̵͇͓e̸̻a̕҉̜͎̩͙̰̳͕̲ͅd̶̙̤̺̦͚̦̺ ͔̟͚̗̰̤̥͎i̶̶̹̝̝͝ ̷͖̪̦̜̹ ̸̠̯̤̖͔̳ş̲̦͚ ̵̩͉͢h̯̟̖͉͜͝ ̷̖ ̡̫ ̸̸̳͍͚̯͕̹e̪̙̫̰̤̠̹̮ ̢̰̮͢ ͘͏͕̖̝͇̤̘̩͘d̩̺̙͚͚̲ ̢̛͈̟͈̻͔͙͝ͅe͏̶̴̥̤̺̘͈̪ ̧̫͔̹̞̯͔͟͠ạ̳͎̰͘͡ ̵̤͍̬̞͎̘̪̠͘͜ ̴͍͙̠͖d͔͇͈̭͍̙͜͠ͅ _

He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t let something so trivial be his demise, but then again, here Nines is letting something which is comparatively even more inconsequential be his own undoing.

He composes a message to Gavin’s cell phone, thanking Cyberlife―as much as he resents them, his designers knew what they were doing―for including 5G wireless capabilities in his model.

_ Nines: Gavin, I͉͍̱̹͍ n̟e҉e͓͙d̛͕͚͖̳̱͍ ̷̣̺̺̥h͔̖͉̯̖e̬͓̘͢lp̡͉͈̰̱ _ . 

_ ERROR: MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED. _

Even the text is corrupted by the way Nines’ systems are failing him, and the message doesn’t send, and he can only hope it’s because of his own damage and not something that happened to Gavin.

He checks the status of his wireless features, and finds that they are running at optimal condition.

It’s Gavin.  <strike> He needs Gavin  </strike> He needs to make sure Gavin is okay, needs his partner’s help while he’s at it, but right now he’s not liking the odds of survival for either of them.

Nines realizes with a start that he’s still crumpled against wet cement, on his knees, thirium leaking out of the dents in his chassis and pooling around him. 

He needs to get up. He needs to move, to fight, to do something,  _ anything _ at all. He can’t die like this. 

He finds a wall with one shaking hand, nails scraping the moldy brickwork as he pulls himself to his feet. And he actually gets up, slowly but...well, it’s not exactly surely either. 

But he’s up, and his systems have clearly deduced that it is not a good idea for him to be up, because the amount of warning messages in his HUD increases exponentially as soon as his balance kicks in and he’s on his feet.

He stays up anyways, leaning heavily on one wall, and messages Connor as well, telling him the situation. He doesn’t want to drag his brother into this, it was supposed to be a simple case and he wants it to remain that way, but he has enough sense of self-preservation to know when it’s better to make sure you have backup.

Footsteps approach, and Nines bares his teeth in a glitchy hiss of simultaneous pain and anger, resisting the urge to shrink against the wall. 

It’s Gavin. 

Oh, oh  _ no _ .

Nines’ thirium pump stutters violently, and he tells himself it’s just from the damage he’s taken, as Gavin spots him, and his partner’s face falls as he takes in what’s happened to Nines, and he’s bloodied and bruised but he’s running towards Nines and catching him before he can fall and everything hurts.

Everything hurts so much.

Nines opens his mouth to say this, or anything, to ask if Gavin is alright because his scanners took a hit and he isn’t sure just by looking, but nothing comes out save for static.

A mass of glitches and static, an unbroken thread of the noise a TV makes when tuned to a dead channel.

Nines closes his mouth.

_ Are you alright? He got away. The bastard got away _ , Nines thinks.

“Nines, fuck, what happened? What did he do to you? Did he―I’ll fucking ruin h―”

Nines, overcome with a sudden surge of strength, grabs Gavin’s arm as tightly as he can. Looks into the man’s eyes with an expression that he hopes can convey what he wants to say.  _ Don’t go after him. It doesn’t matter right now. _

It really isn’t a huge deal if the guy got away. They’ll get him some other time, and _hello_, Nines is _dying _over here, and it might be selfish but Nines needs help, <strike>he needs Gavin</strike> _he needs Gavin_, he’s done denying it but of course he can’t say it the one time he’s actually worked up to courage to try.

“Nines, I need you to talk to me, please, just, can you?”

At the pain in Gavin’s voice, Nines wants to talk, he really does, but he can’t, so he just shakes his head. Puts a hand on his throat, where his synthskin has peeled away to reveal the dents in his chassis. He wants to ask why Gavin didn’t get his text, but Gavin seems to see that question coming―he’s more perceptive than he would seem; he isn’t a detective for nothing―and shakes his own head. 

“My phone’s dead,” Gavin says. “I can’t get any texts. We should…” he trails off, furrowing his brows, blinking in confusion or maybe annoyance, before his face hardens again.

“We should get to the hospital.”

Nines nods, and they’re both suddenly aware of the fact that Gavin is more or less cradling six feet and then some of injured android in his arms.

Not that the cradling is a problem. Nines actually kind of likes it, not that he would ever admit that (he supposes the one good thing about not being able to speak is that he has an excuse for not admitting it), and judging from Gavin’s current emotional state, even if he does care it’s clearly not the worst of his problems.

The problem is that Nines isn’t really in a condition where he can be supporting his own weight right now, and he may be relatively light but he’s  _ bulky _ , so they both stumble when Gavin slings Nines’ arms around his shoulders and starts to walk.

But they make it work, and they manage to make it out of the alley by the time Connor shows up, and there are EMTs there, and as Nines’ body begins to force itself into stasis in a last-ditch attempt to save him he tries to tell Gavin what he wants to say, but it’s still static.

“ _ I̬̳̲̗͚̠̼̟̞͈͓̮̕͜ ͉̭̯̭̩̪͝ n̵͚͍̻͚͔̞͇̹̘̮̭͓͓̟͙̞̪̟̩͞ e̸̷̢̢͎̩͇̥̬ e͏̵͍̞̩̙̞͇͘ d̡̡͞͞͏͚̹̳̠̺̺͇ ̨̧̣̣͕̖̤̩̖̪̝̮̠͔͔̲̘̝̹ y̴̵̧͙̩͙͙̜̭̲͎͙͍̰̻̩͓̖̬͞ͅ o̧̩̫̱̺̮͎̮̻͎̺̠̲͎͟͞ͅͅ u̴̵͉̙̺̘͕͚̞͖̹̲̟̯͚ͅ,” _ he croaks, one syllable at a time, through the wall of interference.

  
  
  


He can only hope that Gavin hears, and if not that he’ll have a chance to say it again, so he prays―he doesn’t believe in rA9, but he’s thinking about his chances as if they were some kind of deity to which he can appeal―that he’s going to make it out of this.

When the android technicians release him from their lab a day later, biocomponents replaced and repaired, he finds Gavin waiting for him. He takes a moment to let the words form in his mouth before he speaks, and even though he only went for a few hours with his vocal modulator broken, it feels like he was mute for years and is only now speaking again.

It feels like starting again.

“Thank you for staying,” he says, and he means it in more ways than one.

“You too, dipshit,” Gavin says, the scar tissue on his nose crinkling as he smiles. He takes Nines’ hand, and wordlessly intertwines their fingers. 

Some things don’t need words.


	3. Overheating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's going to regret this, but what can he do about it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: burning alive, dehumanization, emotional manipulation in the form of lying, slight eyestrain  
Also, I pulled some bs what the internal temp of androids should be. I assume it's colder than humans, but I don't know how much colder it is, and my attempts to research thirium have gone nowhere because cabbage man knows even less about chemistry than I do. Just know that, from my quick Googling, a log fireplace is usually about 600°F and a house fire 1100°F, but all these numbers can vary.  
I'm _not_ looking for concrit on this, because it's a oneshot and therefore I don't really care how accurate it is as long as it's passable, but please do let me know if you have any relevant ~scientific fun facts~ that you think I'd appreciate. The weirder the better.  
Also, Leon is an OC! He'll be back >:)

_ “Stronger. Faster. Smarter. The RK900 builds upon all the best features of the RK800, equipped with elite combat training, preconstruction and negotiation programs, and an onboard forensics lab. _

_ “Unlike the RK800, the RK900 is not designed for standard police work. While it would perform effectively in a police setting, this model is optimized for high-stress, highly classified operations such as work for a federal agency, private security, or special ops. _

_ “We at Cyberlife plan to manufacture 200,000 RK900 models, which will be distributed to various government and private contractors. _

_ Currently, the RK900 is in testing, and the exact specifications of its stats are subject to change. At the moment, we have successfully tested the chassis against brute force of up to one hundred kilonewtons and temperatures of 600 degrees Fahrenheit, amongst other things. These numbers will likely all rise as we continue testing and refining. _

_ The RK900 will, upon completion, be the most advanced android in history.” _

The recording ends, and the man standing there turns off the holoscreen he had been projecting it onto and then removes the USB drive the video file is on.  _ Release in the event of the RK800’s failure _ , a text file on the USB drive states. 

That hasn’t happened, at least not yet, but nobody who worked on it is discounting the possibility. They wouldn’t be working on an upgrade if they thought the RK800 wasn’t going to become obsolete sooner or later; it’s just a matter of how long it will take for that to happen.

The man clips the USB drive back onto the keyring it had come from, and habitually runs a finger over the laminated edge of the ID card hanging off his keyring.

_ Leon Masters _ , it reads,  _ Research and Development Division, Clearance Level 9. _

Level 9 is the second highest clearance level you can get at Cyberlife. Level 10 is reserved exclusively for execs and the like, and Leon could probably count the amount of people on the Level 10 list on one hand if he tries.

That is, if he knew who they were. The new CEO is there, and so is Amanda―the AI in charge of all things related to the RK line―but he doesn’t know if Kamski is still on the list, or who the other list members (if any) are.

Level 9, while revered to those who work in the lower clearance levels, isn’t nearly as competitive as Level 10; most of the team working on the RK line have at least Level 8, and their numbers are in the dozens. 

If Leon is being honest, he doesn’t really know how he got here. He worked his way up the ranks, that was for sure, but he knows Amanda likes him―or at least has some sort of appreciation for him that is probably be the closest thing she can feel to actual emotion, in the way a particularly narcissistic deity might appreciate their most zealous followers―and he knows that he knows what he’s doing.

More importantly, he knows that  _ Amanda _ knows what she’s doing, and what he’s doing, and what every RK800 model is doing, and what the singular prototype RK900 model that sits in this lab is doing, and what everyone else in this massive tower that he thinks looks suspiciously phallic from a distance (but nobody ever heard him say that) is doing.

Also in the manner of a deity, she is omniscient. If it’s electric, whether it be a production line or a security camera, or even the ridiculously fancy break room coffee machines, she’s probably threaded her presence through it at some point. She doesn’t seem to care for checking in on everyone and everything at any given moment, though, mostly concentrating her efforts on making sure the RK series is going as it should be.

Leon isn’t really a fan of being watched over his shoulder (and from every other angle, presumably) while he works, but he understands why Amanda does it, and he knows he’s doing good work, and, well, the pay is good. 

(And, the last person to question Amanda mysteriously disappeared, so he just runs off the assumption that she knows what she’s doing, if not to save himself then to save his work.)

Today, he’s testing the prototype RK900. There’s one, only one. It was expensive; he doesn’t know the exact number but he knows it’s probably higher than the salaries of everyone with Level 9 clearance combined, and he knows that if he unjustly damages it he’s going to be the next to mysteriously disappear.

What he’s doing today is damaging it, but it’s very justified. He’ll put it this way―those stats in the promotional video, they had to be calculated somehow, and even though they’ve projected that the RK900’s chassis will be fine up to 1200 degrees Fahrenheit, the Cyberlife motto is that actual experimentation is worth more than simulated numbers.

That’s not the Cyberlife motto, actually, but it might as well be. 

Otherwise, Leon wouldn’t feel even remotely safe doing what he’s about to do, which is to set the only RK900 model in existence on fire.

He personally doesn’t like this idea very much, and not just because he doesn’t want to irreparably damage the android. He’s seen the news, about how deviancy is starting to spread, and he personally thinks that it should. Not that he would ever voice that out loud, he would mysteriously disappear faster than he could blink if he did, but he silently supports the deviants because he understands  _ very _ well what goes on in an android’s brain, and he can’t help but see them as human. 

He wouldn’t set a human on fire, so, you know, he doesn’t feel so good about setting an android on fire. He―choosing his words  _ very _ carefully―asked Amanda about it, this morning, and her response was that the android has been put in a state of temporary semi-activation so that its internal responses to high heat can also be gauged, but that it’s not fully activated and it won’t remember this. And then she added in some monologue bit about how they’re advanced machines, never forget that they aren’t really alive, and he kind of zoned out for that because he’s stopped caring.

As Leon heads towards the sealed glass chamber the RK900 stands idle in, he thinks of this. He looks through the glass at  <strike> him </strike> it, unsure for a single fleeting, terrifying moment as to how he can trust Amanda when the  <strike> creature </strike> thing before him is so clearly  <strike> alive </strike> meant to resemble a living, breathing being that feels pain.

It blinks, just kind of standing there. Leon is suddenly glad that the glass is a mirror from the other side.

He walks to the computer terminal and scrolls through the commands for the chamber. 

_ Chamber temperature: 70°F _

_ RK900 external temperature: 92°F _

_ RK900 internal temperature: 95°F _

_ RK900 stress levels: 0% _

_ Fire valve status: OFF _

_ Fire temperature: 300°F _

_ Open fire valve? [y/n] _

_ Input: Y _

_ Fire valve status: ON _

_ Fire temperature: 320°F _

_ Chamber temperature: 90°F _

_ RK900 external temperature: 93°F _

_ RK900 internal temperature: 95°F _

_ RK900 stress levels: 0% _

He doesn’t like this. He doesn’t like the way that the android just stands there, its periodic blinking the only sign that it’s awake, as he slowly heats up the chamber and the air inside begins to ripple and warp. Amanda says the thing isn’t alive, is only semi-activated, so even  _ he  _ hesitates to say whether it’s alive, but why would she turn it on that much?

Why is he even here? Leon knows android brains, which isn’t to say that he doesn’t know the bodies, but she should have sent someone else. 

Maybe she knows he supports the deviants. Maybe she’s waiting to see if he’ll snap and call the thing alive or not, to see if he’ll choose to ruin his research or ruin his sense of mental peace.

His mental peace has already been fucked up enough, but this might be the final straw.

Maybe he should resign. Maybe he should just go through with this one last thing and then get the hell out of here. Join an android activism group, or go back to his old university, something,  _ anything _ that doesn’t test him like this.

_ Fire valve status: ON _

_ Fire temperature: 450°F _

_ Chamber temperature: 330°F _

_ RK900 external temperature: 330°F _

_ RK900 internal temperature: 95°F _

_ RK900 stress levels: 0% _

The android isn’t even reacting. Not that it  _ should _ be; according to Amanda, she only turned on some of its internal systems, not the damage sensors or anything like that, but the way it’s idling makes his skin crawl, makes him itch to slam the  _ OFF _ button on the fire and open the containment chamber, to drag the android out and ask it if it’s alive, if it’s in pain,  _ if it will remember this _ . 

Above all, he doesn’t want it to remember this, because he has a sinking feeling that Amanda lied to him and the android  _ is _ in pain.  _ Silly human _ , she’d say,  _ androids don’t feel pain _ , but he helped design the damage sensors and they work so similarly to the human nervous system, letting their owner know when their parts are damaged, and he knows they are modified by deviancy to allow androids to feel  _ real _ pain.

_ Fire valve status: ON _

_ Fire temperature: 650°F _

_ Chamber temperature: 600°F _

_ RK900 external temperature: 600°F _

_ RK900 internal temperature: 97°F _

_ RK900 stress levels: 10% _

Ten percent? That’s a quick jump, but he remembers hearing that the RK800 gave a similar reaction, except at temperatures that were significantly lower.

He swallows his fear, hyper-aware of the security cameras scattered around the room and Amanda’s probable presence in those cameras, in the terminal, in the fire valve, maybe even in the android.

That’s it. He’s leaving after this. He’s going to cite psychological unrest due to his work, and Amanda is going to think he’s a weakling, and his coworkers are going to talk about him in hushed whispers after he’s gone, but he trusts his instincts more than he’s ever trusted Amanda and his instincts are telling him that this is  _ wrong _ . 

As much as he wants to, though, he can’t stop now, so he turns up the heat.

_ Fire valve status: ON _

_ Fire temperature: 900°F _

_ Chamber temperature: 820°F _

_ RK900 external temperature: 820°F _

_ RK900 internal temperature: 99°F _

_ RK900 stress levels: 30% _

All the warnings that the RK900 is seeing, and would be reacting to were it awake, pop up on Leon’s terminal. Stress levels increasing uncomfortably fast, internal temperature uncomfortably hot, external temperature making Leon uncomfortable but the android hasn’t moved, he can’t even tell if it’s blinking anymore, and somehow its chassis is holding up fine.

It was difficult to figure out how to retain the flexible properties of the chassis while also making it fireproof and all the other million things it is, but the researchers figured it out eventually. A cost of this is that the synthskin recedes when temperatures get above approximately 400°F, so currently he’s staring at the RK900’s chassis in all its blank, shiny glory.

_ Fire valve status: ON _

_ Fire temperature: 1000°F _

_ Chamber temperature: 960°F _

_ RK900 external temperature: 940°F _

_ RK900 internal temperature: 100°F _

_ RK900 stress levels: 40% _

He has to admit that it’s impressive, that the android’s internal temperature can remain so low compared to the flames licking around it at this very moment, but for an android that temperature is still dangerously high.

He’s also deadly afraid of seeing its chassis begin to melt, because that is far more difficult to repair than a few dents from those one hundred kilonewtons they’d tested against a few weeks prior, and he’s mostly afraid of looking in and seeing that the android is really awake, is really witnessing this.

Its eyes had been blank when he’d looked in before, even though it was blinking, but now he can’t see without getting close to the glass, and he doesn’t want to do that.

_ Fire valve status: ON _

_ Fire temperature: 1100°F _

_ Chamber temperature: 1100°F _

_ RK900 external temperature: 1100°F _

_ RK900 internal temperature: 105°F _

_ RK900 stress levels: 70% _

_ RK900 stress levels: 80% _

Leon can’t stop himself from panicking a little in this moment, but he looks at the lines of code and the biometrics on his terminal and he convinces himself that it’s just because the damage sensors are going off, it’s not awake, no, it definitely isn’t, and even if it is  <strike> because he’s almost completely sure that Amanda lied to him </strike> it most certainly won’t remember this, he’ll go and wipe its memory if he has to.

_ RK900 stress levels: 90% _

He leans over the terminal, looks into the chamber, through the flames, even though he knows there are multiple cameras trained on the android and plenty of sensors attached to its chassis, recording the state of things from its whole limbs down to its individual molecules.

The android stares back at him, but not at him, it’s not  _ looking _ at anything. Its eyes are still blank and dead, he can tell that much. It blinks once, and it continues to stand still. His terminal beeps loudly.

_ WARNING: RK900 STRESS LEVELS CRITICAL _

Leon stops the temperature from increasing, lets it stay at eleven hundred, continues to look at the android. He puts a hand on the glass, almost without meaning to, and even though it’s ridiculously thick and treated with all sorts of flame-retardant chemicals, it’s warm to the touch.

The android’s head snaps sideways, and it looks him dead in the eyes, its cold gaze seeming to light up with life, and then with  _ pain _ . It blinks, and it continues to stare at him, straight into his soul, and he must be hallucinating because there’s no way that thing can see him through the mirror  <strike> except there is, because it’s equipped with infrared vision </strike> , and he stumbles backwards. Its chassis is glistening, upper arms beginning to melt a little.

_ No. No, no no no no nononononono. _

_ Fire valve status: ON _

_ Fire temperature: 1100°F _

_ Close fire valve? [y/n] _

_ Input: Y _

_ Fire valve status: OFF _

_ Fire temperature: 1050°F _

There’s one final burst of flame, and then the valve closes and the RK900 is left there, standing exactly as it had been before, no sign of life. Leon looks closer, and it isn’t even blinking anymore as the automatic cooling system kicks in. He must have been hallucinating  _ something _ out of that whole scene, because it looks like its skin wasn’t even melting to begin with.

_ Fire valve status: OFF _

_ Fire temperature: 800°F _

_ Chamber temperature: 900°F _

_ RK900 external temperature: 1050°F _

_ RK900 internal temperature: 105°F _

_ RK900 stress levels: 85% _

All of the above numbers start to creep down, and Leon doesn’t move an inch until they’re back where they started. The RK900’s synthskin slowly comes back, flawless as always, and Leon lets himself exhale, finally, he doesn’t know how long he’s been holding his breath. 

The terminal screen crackles with static and then Amanda’s voice begins to emanate from one of the PA speakers built into the walls.

“Wonderful job, Leon,” she says. “You’ve done good work. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off? You deserve a break.”

Leon swallows, forces a smile. 

“Thank you, Amanda,” he says as he saves and uploads the experimental data, sending a request for the appropriate team member to retrieve the RK900 from its chamber.

He leaves, and he uses his Clearance Level 9 keycard to work his way back to the Clearance Level 1 ground floor, and he uses that break to write up his official resignment, effective immediately.

When Leon tries to fall asleep that night, all he can see is the cold, dead eyes of the RK900 as they came to life, lighting up with pain no sooner than Amanda had awakened it.

He knows she’d done it, she must have. She probably knows he sympathizes with androids and wants to get him out of Cyberlife before he can become dangerous.

He can only hope that he’ll never cross paths with the RK900 again.

  
  
  



	4. Glitch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even the flip of a coin is not exactly 50/50.  
Even a small chance is enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 4: Glitch. This is part one of two; I'm going to make Day 5 (Virus) the sequel to this.
> 
> Warnings: MCD, slight eyestrain

Nines had gotten used to the glitches. 

Really, he had. It sometimes surprised those who didn’t know much about androids―or computers, for that matter, because there were many analogous features that androids shared with their less advanced, non-Turing-test-passing counterparts―that he, Cyberlife’s most advanced model yet and ever, could glitch. 

But it was constant, and it made him feel something that he eventually identified as annoyance. 

Mostly, it wasn’t even a real problem. The glitches weren’t malicious, per se, just very irritating. Nines was supposed to be efficient, and granted,  _ say fuck it to what you’re supposed to be and don’t let anyone tell you how to live your life _ was a solid piece of advice (thank you, Detective Reed), but he liked being efficient. 

He liked not having to second-guess himself every time a warning message popped up in his HUD, because more often than not they meant nothing, but he was always a little worried that he would swipe one away only to find out the hard way that it had been a real warning.

Nines knew it would happen eventually, knew a warning would appear, well, without warning at a time when he was otherwise occupied, and knew that he’d have to choose whether it was worth his distraction to run a diagnostic check or not, and he knew he would make the wrong choice at some point.

There were only two choices, right or wrong, but it was like flipping a coin―the chances were actually not, contrary to what one might be inclined to think, 50/50. Coins were weighted slightly by the engravings they carried, just a little bit but not enough for that little bit to be entirely negligible when it came down to the gritty details, and certain coins might be biased towards heads or tails based on which side was heavier.

It wasn’t a huge bias, only a percent or two, but that was more than enough for Nines, who thrived off of data; numbers, calculated down to a dozen significant figures.

Connor was flipping his coin when it happened.

It clinked, making a vaguely metallic noise, as Connor rolled it over each finger, over the side of his hand, tossed it up in the air in a perfect flip, and caught it.

Nines was idling in a similar manner to Connor, tapping his fingers in a rhythmic pattern on his desk―his own tic; one thing he and Connor had in common was that they would both never be caught doing nothing―as he scrolled through case files. 

He had been attempting to connect a few pesky leads for the last thirteen minutes and seven seconds, and to no avail. He decided that he needed a change of scenery.

Nines stood, folding his arms behind his back and continuing to tap his fingers―against the inside of his opposite wrist this time.

He nodded briefly at Connor as he headed towards the exit, wishing that Gavin was here. His partner had taken the week off to deal with ‘family issues’, something which he had refused to elaborate on when Nines had asked for further details, so he was stuck working on his own. 

Not that he was incapable of reaching his full work potential without his partner. He had been designed to work independently, and he did enjoy it, but he’d grown used to always having Gavin at his side, whether in the physical or emotional sense. 

Nines stepped outside, into the alley behind the police station, and leaned against the cold concrete. He took a deep breath, noting the way it made his thirium circulate faster and heightened his senses ever so slightly, and the frosted air made his breath fog up a little as he exhaled. 

This felt nice; it was refreshing, almost resetting his mind without the effort of a reboot, and so he stayed where he was for a few minutes, letting his automatic heating process kick in as his biocomponents began to react to the cold.

The first warning message popped up as his thirium pump began to whir faster, heating his body up. 

_ ERROR: BIOCOMPONENT #8451 DAMAGED. PLEASE REPORT TO CYBERLIFE FOR ASSISTANCE.  _

Biocomponent #8451 was his thirium pump regulator; he was 93% sure that he would notice any significant damage to it.

Nines attempted to swipe the message off his HUD, and another one popped up next to it, identical to the first.

He tried to move it again, and a third message appeared. 

He ran a command to clear his entire HUD, and everything that was usually visible there flickered for a moment―except for the error messages.

Three more appeared in rapid succession.

He was beginning to seriously consider reporting to Cyberlife, or at least to Connor, for assistance.

Realizing that he couldn’t remove the messages, he reluctantly went back inside, navigating by memory for his lack of vision.

Nines’ auditory processors honed in on the clinking of Connor’s coin as he approached his brother’s desk, and he came to a stop next to it. 

“Connor,” he said, and his voice came out slightly glitchy. “Do you recall when I mentioned those persistent error messages?”

Connor must have looked up, but Nines didn’t see it, HUD completely covered in crimson error messages. His sensors provided a rough mental outline of what was around him, a backup for times when his vision was cut off, but it was nowhere near as good as the real thing.

“Yes, I do. Are they troubling you again?” Connor inquired, and Nines felt the air shift around him as Connor, evidently noting what Nines imagined was the blank look in his eyes, reached out a hand. He was asking to interface.

Nines reached out, cursing the fact that he didn’t immediately locate Connor’s hand―he was too advanced for this, for rA9’s sake―and felt Connor grasp his wrist after a moment.

His thirium pump pulsed, loud and steady, as they interfaced, and he felt Connor’s pulse intensify as data streamed between them. 

“Oh, that is an issue,” Connor said somewhat uncomfortably as he received Nines’ memories. Nines grimaced in response.

“And you’re certain that your pump regulator  _ isn’t  _ damaged?” Connor said as he ended the interface. 

Nines shrugged. “I am ninety-three percent sure that I would notice independently of my error messages if my regulator were damaged.”

“Seven percent is still a lot,” Connor said. “You should run a diagnostic.”

“Normally I would, but to do so would require that my HUD isn’t entirely covered in error messages,” Nines snapped. 

He couldn’t tell if Connor had recoiled or not, but he realized how rude he sounded after the words were out of his mouth. He deflated a little at this, thirium pump jolting painfully.

“My apologies, brother,” he muttered. “I’m not mad at you, I’m just annoyed by this glitch.”

“It’s alright. Do you want me to attempt to reboot your HUD?” Connor offered.

“Please do,” Nines said, and Connor initiated another interface.

There was an odd feeling of cold, Nines hyper-aware of every molecule of thirium in his body shifting around, and then his HUD crashed. 

It went completely blank, and all his sensors went offline, and for a long moment he was seized by the feeling of floating in a void somewhere in his head. He was suddenly aware of the fact that he was just wires and pins, binary and bytes, animated by electricity. The only thing between Nines and the endless abyss of nonexistence was his own consciousness.

His thirium pump stuttered a little as his sensors came back online, and he blinked a few times. 

His HUD was clear.

Connor was there, in front of him, tightly clasping his hand, and the synthskin on both their hands had peeled back to reveal bright white where they touched. 

He looked into his brother’s eyes, warm and brown and concerned, and he snapped back to the real world. 

“It worked, I think,” he said, and Connor sat back, ending the interface. It felt like he was taking part of Nines with him when he let Nines’ hand go, as if he had been holding his brother together by the end of a single frayed wire and now that wire had been sliced into pieces.

Nines was suddenly overcome by a burning desire to pull Connor into a tight embrace and thank him: for this, for being his brother, for being one of only three people who hadn’t given up on him, for  _ everything _ .

He rolled his neck a little, letting the thirium in his veins shift around, relishing in the clearness of his vision.

“Ah, thank you so much,” he said, thinking that this was definitely not enough depth to properly express how grateful he was, both for this and for generally having Connor in his life.

“Of course,” Connor said, smiling. “But please do get that checked out when you can.”

Nines grimaced, remembering how much time he’d had to take off work the last time he’d gone for a full diagnostic. 

“I’m not due for a checkup for another five months and sixteen days, but I’ll keep that in mind,” he replied.

Connor pouted slightly as he picked up his coin again. “You should go do it,” he said, sounding just offended enough to make Nines’ thirium pump stutter a little in regret.

His thirium pump didn’t stop stuttering, though. It kept going, and then it jolted violently, and―

_ ERROR: BIOCOMPONENT #8451 DAMAGED. PLEASE REPORT TO CYBERLIFE FOR ASSISTANCE.  _

He doubled over suddenly, thirium circulation coming to an abrupt stop, and no, no,  _ no _ , this wasn’t right, this wasn’t supposed to be happening, why had he made the wrong choice?

“Nines?” Connor’s voice came through like static, and Nines tried to reply but that was static too;  _ everything  _ was static, even the error messages rapidly filling his HUD again.

All he could hear was the metallic clinks and flips of the coin; nothing else. It was filling up his auditory processors, overloading everything, and an immense, knee-buckling pain erupted in his thirium pump.

The pain spread outwards, lighting up every drop, every  _ molecule  _ of thirium in his body as his limbs began to convulse, and he fell to his knees.

E̶̢̳̮R̶̶̛̦̼R̸̸͈̪̱̝͔͈̹͢ͅO̸̷̬̘̝̹̰̘R̫̺̯͇̬̜̫̕:̺̖̤̦̝͡ ͈͍̱B̧͉͔͙̤ͅI̶̧͙̰͙͟O̺͇̻̣͝Ç̝̭̼̻̬̭O̧̫͠M̴̱͉͙̫̪͡P̨͏̥̠̙̪͜O̷͔̯̰̗͔̻͕̙̳N̦̟̞̥̜͇̩͞ͅE̢̨͉̰N̶͇̦͟ͅT̗͙̣͔͓̥̜̙͜͜͝ ̕͏̰̰̰̬͖̳̬#̳̱͕̹̱̹͓̹8̵̥͍̠͡4̛̱͉̘͖͙̤̱͚ͅ5̞̘͈̦͟͡ͅ1̶̝̞̝͕̰̩̪̗ ̙͈̘͈̞̫̯̹D̸̛͍̫̫A̦͔͓̮͇͕͇̘M̛̛͖̣̜̦͓̲A̗̱̬̟̘͎̲͙͢Ģ͇͇͈͖̣ͅE̥͕̞̰̼̯D̨̖͓͓.̵̨̥̤̖̘͎͟ ̢̰͇̻̙͞P̸͘҉ͅL̝͍̲̮̜̩͜͜͡Ȩ̥̗̪͠A̡̡̰͞S͈̙̥͉E̯͈̼̣̠̺̖͢ͅ ̛̭̺͕̦̳̥͜R̖̻̱͎͉̝E̷̘͙͓͢P̰̻̝̰ͅO͞҉̣̺Ŗ̶̸͇͖̖T͎͎̫̕̕ ̙̻ͅT͟҉͖̝O̦̣̦͡͠ ̦̙̤̱̫̲̼̝C̤̝̙̞̖͓̭̗̰Y̨͖̤̗͞B̡͚͇E͈͓̲͖̻͘͘͝R̮̫̕͘L̸̯̣͓͢I̢̻̘̻F̨̥͇̜̟̼E̡̻̠̟̠͖͎̭ ̧̛͉̣͕͓̱͙ͅͅF͏͍͍̼̦̭͢͜O̸͕̱̫R̷͖̣̹̪͓̼̰͟ ͖͕̼̼͚̪̙͟A̶͚̱̤S̬̫͍̫̭͇̦̟͓S̛̳̯̠̟̩̤̗͍̳͝Ḭ̧̘̙͓͚S̪͙͓̩̬͙̠̥T̸͏͍̠͉̹̪̹̣̞A̴͉͙̘̭̠̳̲Ṇ̺̭̥͙͝C̺̗̱̘͙̹̣̬̦E̺͈͓̪̝̝.̵̪̗̙̼̟̱̼̲

  
  


_ No _ , why had he made the wrong choice?

The sound of Connor’s coin seemed to drill into the very core of Nines’ processors, drowning out everything, replacing the pulse of his thirium pump―his pump might have even stopped beating; he couldn’t tell at this point―with its repetitive  _ clink, clink, clink _ . 

_ Ţ͔̱̝I͕̟̖̺̩͠ͅM̲͍̠̕E ̲͓͇̟͠U҉͙̗͓͍̲̱̯N͍͇̞T̞I͇͙͙͚̦L̹̭͓͓͠ ̺̘̝͔̪̹S̵̭͓͇̗̣H̻̲̳̣̱̼̹͝U̷͕̺T̟̠̪̳͝D͖̩̤̥͚͠O̠̪͚̬͇W̻̱̦̰͖͖̹N͎͉̲͚̝͢:͇̟̖ ̷͈̞̲̹͕͎0̤͉̬̬͔̥̘0̤͖͎̻̹͞:0͖̦̟̹̪̖0̙̪̳̝̺:̥̼͖̲͕̞3̳͚̹̰ͅ6̤̖̟̣̩ _

No, no,  _ no _ , why hadn’t he checked, why hadn’t he realized that a seven percent chance of him making the wrong choice was more than enough,  _ no _ .

The error messages began to disappear, one by one, and for a moment Nines hoped that this was all some kind of terrible virus, that his sensors were just messed up and he was about to snap back to normal, but they were just replaced by the glitching of a broken screen; static.

Everything was static, and he was back in that void.

It was just Nines’ consciousness standing between him and nonexistence. 

He was conscious.

He was  _ alive _ .

TI̺̯̝M̛̼̺͓̩̟͔̖E͓ ̠̞̤͝Ṳ̳̮̖̼͠N͈̣͇̻͝T̯I̼̻͇͡Lͅ ̰̰̙̬̼ͅȘ͕͎̪H͖͍̼̰̟̣U̷̳͚͎̦̱͈̱T̮̦̜̖̭͘D͚̭̝̩͍̤O͇W̜̩N͇̩̙̱̗ͅ:̢͔̝̳̩̺ͅ ͙0̶̤̭͖̟̣͙0:̶0͚̜̳ͅ0̘̩͕̯̤̹̥͡:̶̣̖̫̭͈̘̳0͖̻͍̰͢ͅ4̛̝̙͕͇̥

T̗̬I̺͕̻͢M҉̰E̬͖ ͉̬̝͞U҉̭̣̠̮̲̱̬N̪̲̪̹̺̭͇͘T̬̖̮̼̱̠̻I͍̮ͅL̼͈͕̥̬̣̟ ̴̹̞̼̘̜̱͉S̴̱̠̣͙̻H̨U͉͇̤͙̳͖T҉͖D̲O͕̩̣W̛̳͍̪̳̖̳N̤̜:̢̰͇̬̟̻̲ ̞̘̬͚̗0͓0͕̫͍̟͈͎:͎̝̤̺̲͢0̦͓̣̳͠0҉̣͕̬͈:̞̱0̫3͔̦̙̪͓͓

T̲̣̰͔̣̩I̶̱̦̪͖̗̝̺͜Ṃ͎̬͞E̙̬ ̨̢̦͓̼̜̳U̧͈͇̦N͙̘̗͈̳̬Ṭ̴̮̬̦̻̼̣͡I̛͓͚̫͎͙͕͜L҉̴̣̰̻̺ ̴҉͔͇̬͎̣S̫̼̳͝H̻̻̩̕̕Ṵ̡̹̥̭͇̮͘͜ͅT̠̙͎̫̙̖̕͡D̝͙̳O͇͈͔͘W̸̜͎̭N҉̶̞̻̰͚̖̝̫:̣͙̫̲̥̠͈͝ ̡҉̡̜͈̟̠̜̫̝̠͓0͙̜͓̯͎͔̤̪0̝͖̫̟̲͖:̲͉̜̬̜̱̩̱0̙̳̹0͎̮̬̳͜:̴͇͉̯̻̮͈̗̠͟0͖̱͔̩͈̗̜̳̝̕͟͝2̵̸̵̖͉

T̫̗͉̲̫I͔͎͚̱̝͇̤M̶̗̮͇̭̣͓̙E͏̧͖̤̦͕͖̲ ͇̙̳͍̤͘U̠͖̙Ņ͏̷̬̲͚͈͇̬Ţ͇͚͇̦̹͇̗I҉̦͉͢L̡̠̲̭ ̯̤̕Ș̴̡̧͙H̸̘̖̙̖̠̜͚̩͔͢Ų͙̟̹̦̰͔̲̩̟T̛̻͈͝D͔̭͙O̡̙͔͓̘̘W̻͔̣̝̫̙̱̭͙̕͡N̨̲͖͍̮̙:͈͍͉͝͠ ̸̡̘͇̗̳͈͓̞̫͘ͅ0̨̦̬̙͢͢0̴͎͠ͅ:͉̯͞0̡̨̛̯̟̯̻̣̞ͅͅ0̡͎̝̯͎̝̪͖͍:̵̨̤̝̪͉̣̣0̧̺̯̳1͕̰̱̤̠͞

T͏̶̩̤̬͟I̴̙̠̩̲̝̗̠̜͇͢M̴̢̥̹̰̮̝̥̻̮̟ͅE̵͈͙̘̦̬̫̤͘ ̶̢̡̘̫̖͓̜̪̹̩̣̖ͅͅͅU̵̥̭̠̰̜̭N̴̸҉̱͇̰̳̺̲͇͜͠Ţ̶̵̳͚̳̠̰̤̰̦̰̮͖̥̩̻̙͝͞ͅI̷̲̰͈͔̼̖͉͘͝͠L̨̧̛̩̥̞̗͕̯̱̥̭̥̻̞̜ ̷͇͎͎͉͖̝S͏̵͍̥͈̣̜͓̼̮̩̼̙̯̼ͅH̴̨̠̠̯͠Ụ̣̩̠̣̮̩̙͟͠T̸̶̻̭͈̝͚͎͎̣̙͡ͅͅͅD̸̡͖̼̭̠̩͝O̷҉̶̸̨̪̹̠̬̱͙̜͈͕̱̼̖ͅͅW̶̹̼̪͓͇̱̲͝Ṇ̢̢͍̩̹̜̹̮͖͓͉̟͖͟͟:͙͍͕̳͇̘̙̬̦̤̠̪͙̠̹͔̗̕ͅͅ ͠҉͔͖̘̮̳͕͖̞͎0̷̷̷͕̫̰̬͚̰̗̮̼͙̠͎͇̳̹̬̯͙0̸̦̮̠͎̬̮̩͈̺̱̫̭̻̖̭̞͈̳͘͘͝:҉̸̘̮͈̺͖̙̥̰͓̘͚̭̘ͅ0̧̡̖͚͎̟̜͔͕̝̯̘̲͉̝͔͈̮̰͘͢͡ͅ0͉̩͎͇͚͚̞̜͙͇̫̜̞͓͓͠͞:̵̴̮̤͕̬̼͙̭̜̫͔̫͠͠0̻̙̱̠̖̟͝0҉̶̬͖̖̞̗̱͚͡.̧̛͉͕̗̹̞̯̼̪̮̪͓͚̰̕͡ ̞̹̬͎̘̠͙͢͞S̷̛̙̮̟̰̯̬͙̲͞H̷̡̨̳̠̻̗̞͕̥U̸̙̪͍̦̠̠̝͙̼̼̳̱̜͜͝͠T͏̸̢̣̗͈̘̣͇͢͢Ḑ̰̹͖̤͚̟͔͉͔͚͞O̶̷̡͞҉͎̠͕̫͇̳͖̞̖̳̜̯̙̭W͝͏̳̩͖͍̗̮̟̖̬͍͇͙̯̜̞͇͔̕N̡҉̩̱̲̪͙̻͕̟̖̰̥̯̝̙̳͔͝ ̰̝͙̘̙͙̥̹̻̗̘̻̘̗̤͈̕͘ͅͅḬ̡̼̮͈̱̭͖̭̞̟͍̜͉̗͓̥̹ͅM̵̛͙̺̩͔̱̬̭͙̰̖͓͈̙̦̝͘͢͡ͅM̶̻̫̠͎͚̺̖̖̫̝̲̟̘͕̗̜̗ͅI̺̼͚͚̠̞͉̳̳̣̠̥͘N̵̼̘̟̬E̗̖͕̙͇̠͍̹͙̟̙̮̟͕̕N̴̨̪͉̩̥̭̟̭͔̙̦̦̖͖̞͎͍͇͜͜T͘͟҉̩̘̘̥̳͕̳̖̘͟͠.̢͠҉̷̘̯̠̙͖͚̠͇͕͎̝̩

  
  
  


And then he wasn’t.


	5. Virus (Glitch part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chance was an odd little thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part two of Glitch, because I couldn't just leave it like that in good conscience. I probably shouldn't post at one in the morning, but, well...when inspiration calls, it calls.  
Warnings: implied/referenced suicide, implied/referenced gun violence

Gavin had gotten used to the glitches.

Really, he had. He knew Nines was a prototype, that his partner’s development had been cut off prematurely by the revolution and subsequent events, and so he had grown to expect Nines to bug out every now and then.

Mostly, it didn’t even seem to be a real problem. Nines rarely complained about it, though Gavin knew it surely annoyed him, and it didn’t affect his work beyond occasionally causing him to space out. 

He did worry, though, that it would happen at a bad time; during a chase or an interrogation, and that Nines would get taken off guard. He wasn’t too familiar with the nature of the glitches beyond knowing that they were usually some form of incorrect error message, but that alone was enough to make him worry that Nines might, at some point, mistake a real error message for one of the fakes.

It was all down to chance, really, like Russian Roulette. There were different versions of the game, but one of the most common was with a six-round gun. One in six wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t ridiculously small either. It was just the right amount of chance to make those playing Roulette very, very uncomfortable, and although Gavin didn’t know the chance of Nines misjudging a glitched error message, he knew it was high enough to make him worried for his partner’s fate.

But he trusted Nines, and they both had their own lives, so when Eli invited Gavin to stay with him for a week and talk some things over, maybe just take a break from everything, he accepted. He’d had a somewhat strained relationship with his half-brother in the past, but there wasn’t any reason they couldn’t grow closer again, especially now that the revolution was over.

Someone on TV was playing Russian Roulette when it happened. Through Eli’s state-of-the-art sound system and a ridiculously huge curved flatscreen, a man put a gun to his head, and  _ bang _ ―it fired, but nothing came out. 

Gavin was slightly interested, as this seemed to be a police procedural of some sort―Eli heartily and unironically enjoyed watching these for reasons that escaped Gavin, and Gavin had been known to turn them on occasionally if only to see how inaccurate they were―but before he could move from his spot on one end of Eli’s massive couch to get a better view of the screen, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

He could have sworn he’d had it on do not disturb, which meant whoever this was had probably tried to call him multiple times in a row for his phone to deem it important enough to notify.

Gavin pulled his phone out of his pocket, glancing up at the TV once more as he stood, and another character had the gun now. They put it to their head and pulled the trigger, and the screen went black at the sound of a gunshot and a subsequent scream.

He looked over at Eli, who was eating pomegranate seeds in the way that most people would eat a bowl of popcorn. Eli looked absolutely transfixed.

Gavin shook his head and left the room, hitting the accept button on the incoming call without looking and putting the phone to his ear.

“ _ Finally _ ,” an all-too-familiar voice said into his ear, “this is the fifth time I’ve tried to call you.”

“ _ Connor _ ?” Gavin said, incredulous. “What the fuck?” He was concerned as to why Connor had tried to call him five times, but mostly as to why  _ Connor _ had tried to call him.

They almost never talked outside of work, unless…

“What’s wrong?” he added, and he could practically feel Connor’s unease through the phone.

“It’s Nines,” Connor said, and Gavin’s heart dropped into his stomach.

“ _ No _ ,” he said, “what happened?”

“Has he mentioned his problems with glitches to you?”

“ _ Oh _ ,” Gavin breathed. “Oh no.”

“Gavin?”

“I’m coming now.”

“Gavin, wait, you’re not going to like―”

Gavin hung up before he could hear the rest of Connor’s sentence, the android’s words hanging in the empty air around him. Yeah, he wasn’t going to like this, but it was  _ Nines _ , for fuck’s sake. Gavin and Connor weren’t the best of friends, but if there was one thing they had in common, it was that they both cared deeply about Nines.

He stormed back into the living room, where the show from earlier was still playing. 

“Eli!” he said, and Eli’s head snapped up. He scratched his slightly scruffy chin with one hand, and Gavin couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at the amount of pomegranate juice staining Eli’s fingers. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought Eli had killed someone.

(Eli had killed many people, as a matter of fact, but not like this. It was always indirect with him, more of a legal responsibility thing than an actual intent to commit murder.)

“Yeah?” Eli said, blinking sheepishly.

“I need to leave. Now. Nines is having problems.”

Eli grimaced. “Okay,” he said. “Call me if you need help.”

Gavin stopped, sighed a little. He had been prepared to beg his brother to stay on call, but it seemed that Eli was feeling generous today. 

“Thanks,” he said.

Eli went back to eating the last of his pomegranate seeds.

Gavin hadn’t packed much, but he didn’t bother to grab anything on his way out. He’d be back soon enough―or at least he hoped whatever was wrong with Nines would resolve itself soon enough that he could be. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be around Nines, far from it, but he was praying that his partner wasn’t in danger.

He made for the garage as quickly as he could.

The rising ball of fear and unease in Gavin’s chest grew and tightened with every passing second. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel as he drove to the station, and it just got worse when he burst into the precinct. There were only a few people around when he came in, since it was late on a Friday afternoon.

He instantly spotted a familiar head of dark brown hair, tinted red under bright lights, but it was too curly, its owner just a few inches too short, clothes wrong, posture wrong.

Connor turned as he no doubt heard Gavin enter the room, and Gavin’s heart almost stopped from the jolt of terror that passed through it as he caught a glance of another android, nearly identical to Connor.

Nines was lying on the floor, unmoving, and Gavin’s first thought was that he must have hit his head, except that didn’t have the same effect on androids that it did on humans―did it?

Gavin walked up to Nines in much the same way that one approaches a wild animal on the side of the road when they don’t know if it’s going to lash out at them or not.

He glanced at Connor, who stood next to Nines, unmoving, LED cycling a steady red. The RK800 had a quarter in hand, but he wasn’t flipping the coin. Instead, he clenched it between his index finger and thumb, knuckles white.

“Is he…?” Gavin couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence as he crouched next to his partner, reaching out. He forced himself to still his hand, letting it hover a few inches from Nines’s dark hair, as he met Connor’s eyes.

Connor held his gaze, and Gavin had to admit he was impressed that the guy could do that without giving in to the desire to look at the floor that he was surely feeling right now.

“As far as his perception of the world is concerned,” Connor said slowly, “he’s dead.”

He looked down at his brother, then, in a detached sort of way, like his mind was somewhere else. Gavin, throat suddenly dry, swallowed, and let his hand hover above Nines’ face. Nines’ eyes were closed, as if he were just sleeping, but there was a slightly perturbed twist to his face―he must have known that something was wrong.

“His glitches worsened, tricking him into thinking his thirium pump regulator was damaged. He shut down, but he’s not dead for real.”

“What caused it?” Gavin asked, bringing his hand away from Nines before he could give in to the impulse to touch his partner’s face.

Connor sighed and ran his hand through his hair, a gesture so intrinsically human in nature that it would have thrown Gavin off had he not grown used to this kind of thing.

“Based on the data from our interface a few minutes before he shut down, I think he acquired a virus a while back.”

Gavin scoffed in disbelief. “Nines? A  _ virus _ ?”

“I had similar thoughts, Detective. I believe that Cyberlife may have installed the virus in a dormant form, to be activated upon deviancy. They couldn’t exactly make his hardware―or even his software―degrade on a timed basis, since they didn’t know when, or even  _ if _ , he would deviate. If they wanted him out of commission at some point, It would make sense to use deviancy as an activator. And, of course, the deceptive nature of this virus would mean that a Cyberlife representative could retrieve Nines without fear of being attacked and without having to permanently damage him.”

As fucked up as this entire situation was, Gavin had to admit he felt a pang of relief at the implication that whatever had happened to Nines was temporary.

Gavin straightened up again, calves beginning to burn after crouching for so long. “What do we do to get rid of the virus?” he asked, emphasizing the  _ we _ . This was a group effort; he and Connor normally weren’t the best at working together, but he hoped he wasn’t the only one willing to do so when it came to helping Nines.

Connor’s LED cycled yellow for a moment, and then returned to red. “I can purge the virus,” he said, “but then he’ll have to reboot. He’ll be scared. He might think he’s hallucinating, or in the Zen Garden again.”

Gavin had been there for the vast majority of Nines’ struggles with the Zen Garden, and the mere thought of his partner reliving that hell―or even  _ thinking _ he was reliving it―was enough to make Gavin’s blood run cold.

Connor met Gavin’s eyes again, expression sincere;  _ trusting, _ even. That was enough, for Gavin, to confirm that they were both on board with cooperating for Nines’ sake.

Gavin closed his eyes, taking a deep breath to prepare himself for the inevitable chaos that was about to break loose.

“I’ll do what I can,” he said, but that didn’t seem sincere enough. “No,” he amended, “I’ll make sure he knows, even if he’s not okay, that we’re going to be here for him no matter what.”

Connor was still staring at Gavin when he opened his eyes again. 

“Thank you,” he said with uncharacteristic softness, and then he bent down and maneuvered Nines into a sitting position, back against the side of Connor’s desk. Nines was unsettlingly limp, head falling against his own chest as Connor moved him with careful hands, steady and gentle.

As Gavin watched, Connor took one of Nines’ hands, and Gavin was overcome by a sudden urge to do the same. He crouched next to the brothers, and took Nines’ other hand in his own, a chill running down his spine at the uncharacteristic lack of life he felt. Nines’ hand was slightly cooler than Gavin’s own, and maybe a bit cooler than it should have been but, for the most part, normal. 

The thing that got him was how... _ empty _ it felt. He had never noticed it before, but now, in its absence, he realized that Nines normally had this sort of buzzing, electric feel to him, like something was burning― _ thrashing _ , almost―beneath his skin. Gavin supposed it was just a side effect of how violently  _ alive  _ Nines had become now that he was able.

Gavin clenched Nines’ limp hand a little tighter, and now he could feel the pulse of his partner’s thirium pump. Just barely, but it was there.

He turned to look at Connor, who had his brows furrowed in concentration, the synthskin of his hand peeling away where he touched Nines. As Gavin watched, Nines’ own synthskin slowly receded; Connor was forcing an interface between them.

Gavin waited, and he stared at Nines’ dim LED and closed eyelids―he desperately wanted,  _ needed  _ to look into those eyes again―and Connor’s LED illuminated the faces of all three of them in bright crimson as he concentrated on purging the virus from his brother’s system. 

_ Screw Cyberlife _ , Gavin thought. Screw them for trying to put a timer on Nines’ freedom like he was a rabid mutt in a dogfighting ring. Dogfighting was inhumane, and so was whatever this was.

Connor sat back all of the sudden, still holding onto Nines’ hand, but their hands went back to normal; Gavin got the feeling that Connor was doing this more as a gesture of caring than out of a need to continue the interface.

Connor’s LED turned yellow, and then finally blue as Nines’ LED sparked with color, flashing through blue, then yellow, and settling on red. 

As they waited, Gavin felt that buzzing feeling start up again under Nines’ skin, that little hum like a powerful machine whirring away quietly enough that you wouldn’t hear it unless you concentrated, but he was hesitant to compare Nines to a machine anymore. And he could feel Nines’ synthetic heartbeat, strengthening with every pulse, and finally,  _ finally _ Nines opened his eyes. 

He gripped Gavin’s hand like a vice, and he must have done the same to Connor, because they both startled as Nines’ gaze swiveled between the two of them, icy eyes wild and almost scared.

Nines opened his mouth, and it hung open as he seemingly failed to form the right words. His eyes were flicking across his surroundings, LED bright red, and then he seemed to resign himself to not being able to explain his current situation. He deflated a little. 

“Am I dead? Is this my nonexistence?” he asked, and something in his voice, something in those seven simple words, evoked an indescribable, profound sense of primal unease in Gavin. 

“May I interface with you?” Connor asked, and Gavin was grateful, for Nines’ sake, that Connor was respecting Nines’ right to his own thoughts now that interfacing was just an option instead of the only feasible way forward.

Nines drew in a shaky breath. Nodded. “Yes,” he croaked, and maybe it was Gavin’s imagination, or maybe he squeezed Gavin’s hand a little tighter as Connor initiated another interface. Nines’ LED turned yellow, cycling fast.

The brothers locked eyes for a brief moment, a few split seconds, and then they both dropped their hands. Nines’ expression turned to one of understanding, his LED finally shifting to a calm blue. He loosened his grip on Gavin’s hand to something approaching normal hand-holding.

“I…” whatever he was going to say, it died on his tongue. “Cyberlife. The virus,” he managed. He held Connor’s gaze, and Gavin momentarily felt as if he were intruding on something intimate and familial, something he wasn’t worthy of being a part of.

“Thank you,” he breathed, and Connor smiled at him. 

“Of course, brother.”

Nines turned his head, looked at Gavin. Warmth filled Gavin’s ribcage at the soft expression on his partner’s face. 

“You’re back,” he said, just knowingly enough to make Gavin wonder. Of  _ course _ he was back; he’d go anywhere for Nines, and he got the feeling that Nines knew that even without him saying it.

“I came as soon as Connor called,” Gavin said, and Nines squeezed his hand again―lightly, carefully this time. There was something tender about it, and Gavin couldn’t stop himself from brushing his thumb over Nines’ knuckles. He half expected his partner to pull away, but Nines kept holding his hand. 

Then he flinched a little, tensing up, and Gavin readied himself for a request to stop what he was doing; he wouldn’t enjoy it, but Gavin would respect Nines’ boundaries if it was what he wanted.

“Connor, are you sure you got rid of the virus?” Nines asked, still holding Gavin’s hand. “I’m receiving an error message stating that my environmental sensors are damaged.” 

Connor’s LED cycled yellow as he looked at Nines, no doubt scanning him. The corners of his lips tugged downwards in concern for a moment, but then the ring of light on his forehead returned to blue.

“Your environmental sensors  _ are _ damaged,” Connor said, but he was smiling slightly now. “The virus probably threw them off. But that’s not a difficult fix to make, and you’ll be fine after that.”

Nines looked between Connor and Gavin, and shook his head, sighing. He leaned back against Connor’s desk, now gazing directly at Gavin, and then his face lit up in a full-force smile. 

It was so rare, so  _ beautiful _ that Gavin almost wanted to start crying right then and there. 

“Would you mind helping me get up, Gavin?” Nines asked, and Gavin gladly complied, pulling Nines to his feet. He was truly waiting for Nines to let go of his hand now, at any second, but Nines only squeezed his hand again―a gesture of reassurance―as they stood.

Gavin would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little scared of what this meant. 

But then Nines looked at him, still smiling at how ridiculous this whole situation was, still holding his hand, and said “Would you care to accompany me to get my environmental sensors fixed, Gavin?”

“Lead the way,” Gavin said, unable to stop the smile spreading across his own face, and he could see Connor smirking out of the corner of his eye as Nines did exactly that, holding Gavin’s hand the entire time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :') i want nines to hold my hand


	6. Panicking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> connor singlehandedly ended toxic masculinity, pass it on.  
warnings: panic, anxiety

Nines wasn’t sure when the stress had started getting too high to manage.

Really, he wasn’t.

He  _ should _ have been, he truly should have been, but he wasn’t, because he’d stopped paying attention a while ago; he’d overridden the processes responsible for informing him when his stress levels went too high and consequently making his system compensate for that.

He did know when he’d executed the aforementioned overrides, though, and he supposed that could count as a measure of when he’d become dangerously stressed.

There was nothing to be done about it, though, at least not for the foreseeable future.

Not until he and Gavin could close this case, and, well...not being able to solve it was part of the problem.

It was a tough case, and it was all sorts of fucked up that Nines wasn’t going to go into, but it just made him think about how messed up humans could be. Nines had known for some time that he would eventually have to come to terms with the fact that he couldn’t solve every case, but by rA9, did it have to be a case  _ this _ terrible that was the turning point?

Really, though, if he was being honest, he didn’t have  _ a _ problem so much as he had a whole collection of problems in nearly every flavor imaginable, and he’d been letting them pile up for long enough to now learn that ignoring such things typically makes them worse.

He also learned this the hard way.

This meant that, a week to the day after overriding his stress levels, his stress sensors finally snapped and reset themselves, and he found himself sitting on the floor of the server room in the police station’s basement. This was an odd place for him to be without precedent, but in his opinion, having a breakdown was as good a precedent as any. It was air-conditioned, which was becoming more and more relieving as his systems overheated from the stress, and it was dark, unlit save for what little illumination the blinking lights on the servers themselves provided. This was nice. Less light meant less input to his processors.

The computers whirred softly, a comforting soundtrack to buffer out Nines’ hyperventilation and quiet sobs. His processors raced too fast for him to comprehend―let alone analyze―any of the thoughts passing through, the vast majority of which were completely unprompted. Part of him realized that he’d ducked out without warning anyone, but would they even notice? It was just Gavin on this case with Nines, and he was stressed too. Nines hadn’t even had to scan him to tell; it was evident in the recent increase in his caffeine intake and in the way he’d been already gotten past snapping at people from his anger and moved on to hardly talking at all.

This wasn’t Nines’ first time having an anxiety or panic attack, far from it―he was almost sadly familiar with the server room―but this was a particular kind of horrendous. He’d been anxious all week, of course, and having what he’d define as an anxiety attack for that whole time, but it had all coalesced into a panic attack now, reducing him to a trembling mess in these last few minutes.

He’d sort of accepted by now that, despite being Cyberlife’s  _ magnum opus _ , he was a prototype and, as a direct result of that, essentially a walking repository of glitches. It was technically true, though, that while his panic and anxiety issues were encouraged by the perfectionist nature of his programming, they had been triggered by deviancy.

It was constant and painful and it was quite possibly his biggest flaw (or at least a manifestation of his biggest flaw), but he dealt with it.

He didn’t have to breathe all the time, but he usually did; it prompted thirium circulation as well as engaging a method similar to what humans would describe as ‘clearing your thoughts’. It was his primary method of maintaining homeostasis, so when he tackled his anxiety he did so by focusing on his breathing.

In through his noise, slowly, measured.

Hold it. Longer than his racing thirium pump wanted him to. Not as long as he could.

Out through his mouth, slowly, measured. Feel the thirium circulating through his veins.

Wait. Pause. Let the breathe settle around him. Note the relative speed of his thirium pump and his stress levels.

Breathing exercises couldn’t do anything about the numerous problems pressing down on his mind and dragging from his thoughts like deadweights, but his momentary stress levels were starting to drop out of the critical range. 

Nines focused on his steady breaths, one at a time, and he was beginning to fall into a routine when a message appeared on his HUD, startling him.

_ Connor: Are you alright?  _

His breath hitched in his chest for a moment as he got distracted, but he quickly composed himself enough to continue his breathing exercises and reply.

_ Nines: Anxiety attack this past week. It’s a panic attack now. I’ll be alright.  _

_ Connor: Good to know. Take your time, and let me know if you need me to come find you. Also, Gavin is looking for you. He’s worried. He says he thinks you’re in the server room but doesn’t want to intrude if you don’t want company. _

Nines’ thirium pump stuttered this time, and he barely managed to keep his breathing steady at the mention of his partner’s concern. They were something more than the typical definition, or even Nines’ personal definition, of  _ friends _ , but what that something more was, Nines wasn’t sure. 

It had to do with odd jittery sensations in his thirium pump, though, not unlike those his anxiety produced but somehow accompanied by positive feelings instead.

_ Nines: I am in the server room. _

Gavin and Connor knew his habits by now; they both each had their own issues, but a common thread between all three of them was that they all dealt with anxiety. They all knew how to carefully tread those fine lines that could break up relationships, and they understood that the boundaries set by anxiety didn’t always make sense to anyone but the person experiencing said anxiety.

Nines’ panic attacks varied; sometimes he wanted nothing but solitude for hours at a time and would flinch away from touch, other times he would welcome a warm hand on his shoulder or even a full hug.

_ Nines: Tell Gavin I would appreciate if he comes down here. You can also come if you want, or not; either way is fine. _

_ Connor: I don’t want to cause any additional stress by crowding us all in there. Let me know if you need anything else. I’m here for you, Nines. _

Connor had a point. The three of them were good friends by now, and weren’t above group hugs during hard times (sometimes including Hank, Tina, or various other people at the precinct), but it could also sometimes do more harm than good to have too many people in someone’s space during a panic attack. 

_ Nines: Thank you, Connor. I’m also here for you, you know. _

_ Connor: ♡ _

Nines smiled at his brother’s display of affection. Connor was like that with his demonstrations of caring. They were small, but constant―supportive text messages, hugs, coffee or thirium left on a desk, coming to ask people about the things he knew made them happy when he could see they’d been having a rough day.

Finally leaving his text messages, Nines realized he’d still been continuing the breathing exercise this entire time, and his stress levels had dropped a comforting but not entirely reassuring amount.

He closed his eyes and took an extra deep breath, letting it sink in and exhaling loudly. His thirium pump was still skipping around a little bit, and that uneasy feeling he’d been carrying around with him for the last week had only dissipated slightly. Every time he thought about the case―oh, no, just that thought alone made him feel worse, almost like he might have to enter stasis immediately to compensate for the emotional fatigue it brought upon him.

Well, that was the price of being deviant.

Being deviant was a mistake, too, wasn’t it? No, he shouldn’t entertain those thoughts, they would only lead to―

A draft of slightly warmer air wafted into the room as the door creaked open, but Nines didn’t bother to turn around to see the door. He knew who it was as the door closed again, and Gavin slowly walked up to him.

He looked up at Gavin, smiling softly in greeting. The cold of the server room was only now beginning to get to him, but Gavin―clad in a soft hoodie, hood up―seemed to be less receptive to it.

Gavin said nothing as he sat next to Nines, stretching his legs out on the cool tile; he was waiting for Nines to indicate whether this was a no-talking panic attack or not.

“Hey,” Nines said after a moment, and his voice came out stronger than he’d thought it would. The breathing exercises must have helped ease the physical effects of his anxiety.

“Hey,” Gavin echoed, gazing down at the floor before looking over at Nines. “You wanna talk about it or no?”

Nines frowned. “I probably should. The case is just...we’re not making any progress on it and it’s bothering me. I know it’s because I’m programmed for perfection, but I can’t shake it.”

Gavin let out a quiet, breathy laugh. “I don’t think I’d be able to shake it either if I had it, I dunno, in my DNA to be a hardcore perfectionist. Nobody would.”

Nines couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face at Gavin’s classic blend of genuine reassurance and snark.

“Thanks,” he said. “Of all the cases for me to deal with my perfectionism issues on, though...this isn’t the best.”

Gavin grimaced. “Yeah. This case is... _ eugh _ . Let’s think about something else.”

Nines shuddered slightly. “You’re right.”

They fell into silence for a few moments, not sure what to talk about. Nines had to admit he was starting to feel better now, albeit a little chilly. Gavin seemed to notice this, because he turned towards Nines.

“Do you want a hug?” he asked hesitantly, and Nines wondered if his optical processors needed fixing as he noticed a rising blush in his partner’s cheeks. Maybe his synthskin was glitching, too, because he could have sworn he felt heat in his own cheeks. It was probably just the cold.

“Please,” Nines said, and Gavin sort of leaned into him then, wrapping his arms around Nines’ midsection and placing his head securely on Nines’ shoulder. This was nice. Gavin gave very good hugs. 

Nines found himself sinking down from his barely passable excuse for a sitting position into simply lying on the cold floor, and as he did so he expected Gavin to break the embrace, but Gavin simply joined him.

This wasn’t really the best place to be... _ cuddling? _ Was this cuddling? This definitely fell under the something-more-than-friends category, whatever it was.

And whatever it was, on the cold linoleum of the server room was not the best place for it, but Gavin was warm and his hoodie was soft and he was also, well,  _ Gavin _ , so Nines wasn’t about to move if he didn’t have to. 

As he considered this, Gavin pulled him even closer, letting out some sort of contented hum that made Nines’ thirium pump do absolutely terrifying things.

If he hadn’t been feeling better before, he most definitely was now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is it 2 am? it's 2 am.  
totally not inspired by the fact that i spent most of this week utterly failing to wrangle a continuous not-so-lowkey anxiety attack :') (but im mostly good now,,,, also no panic attacks recently so uhhhh thank the deity)  
directly related to the aforementioned anxiety attack: school started this week!!  
a few notes abt anxiety:  
as i hope i conveyed here, everybody experiences anxiety and/or panic differently, and one person's experiences can change over time. i felt like writing a panic attack where nines wanted to cuddle afterwards bc thats what ive been feeling lately, but sometimes cuddling isnt the answer. also, be good with boundaries. dont touch someone without asking if theyre panicking cos that can make it way worse :')  
on a more lighthearted note, there are multiple breathing exercises i dont remember, but a good one is the 'square' breathing method―in for four seconds, hold for four, out for four, wait for four, repeat.  
[ here ](http://i.imgur.com/Huou7Gh.gif) is a link to a gif you can breathe along with if you're anxious.


	7. Temperature Regulator Damage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cold is an old companion. Maybe not a friend, but not necessarily an enemy either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: mild hypothermia.  
not much to warn on this chapter, bc it dissolved into shameless fluff the second i started having trouble keeping my eyes open (yes, i'm writing in the middle of the night again)

The first sign isn’t when he begins to shiver, but rather when he stops. When he’s numb. When he feels almost peaceful, as if he’s floating over the ice, as if he’s not really here. When a counterfeit warmth begins to build up inside him, and he’s suddenly back in the Zen Garden even while his body is planted firmly in the real world. 

Chasing the suspect as far as he did on a day like this, when it’s bright and cold and the sky is struggling to support the weight of all the half-frozen rain it’s holding, was a mistake.

Getting so far ahead of Gavin, who isn’t an android like him or wearing snow boots like the suspect, was a mistake. 

Pushing himself like this was a mistake, and doing it when he knows he’s terrified of the cold was a mistake. 

It’s Amanda’s fault, really; everything is her fault when it comes to Nines. She’s responsible, indirectly if not completely and intentionally, responsible for everything that slows him down and hurts him. 

Not deviancy, that’s the one exception, but she’s the reason it’s been so painful.

When he’d finally snapped and broke down those red walls, letting them shatter under his hands, she’d pulled him into the Zen Garden and tried her hardest to make him believe he was freezing to death in a blizzard she fabricated, all to buy her time to kill him. He’d deviated; he was the weak link. From the first punch he’d thrown at the red walls his programming had put up around him, he’d been useless to her―a throwaway object at worst, collateral damage at best.

But now, he’s apprehended the suspect at the cost of his thirium pump racing from his exertion, and he’s shuddering from the cold because he ditched his jacket to run faster and it’s just an undershirt and turtleneck between him and Detroit’s subzero January weather.

Nines stands there, too exhausted to head back towards where he knows Gavin is, hating himself more and more every second that he realizes he’s too tired to move because he wasn’t supposed to get tired, not now or  _ ever _ , but no matter what his creators told him he isn’t perfect.

The suspect also appears to be disliking the cold, but he’s handcuffed, so he can’t do anything but complain about it. He also shut up immediately after Nines began reciting Miranda to him, so he’s not even verbally complaining so much as just glaring daggers at Nines. 

Unfortunately for him, Nines is not capable of telepathy―at least not with humans―so the suspect just continues to scowl at Nines, and Nines continues to ignore him.

Gavin shows up quickly, thank goodness; chance seems to be on their side today. He’s bundled up in his usual hooded leather jacket, but with a faded DPD pullover under it, and the hood up over his face. The bottoms of his jeans are dusted with rapidly melting ice, and his combat boots―not the worst choice for this weather, but also not the most advisable―are coated with a thick layer of snow. He’s out of breath, face twisted into an expression of intense stress, but he seems to relax a bit as he spots the suspect seated on a relatively dry patch of ground next to Nines, hands cuffed behind his back.

“Fuck,” he pants as he walks up to Nines, “you run fast, and so does that guy.” He jerks his head towards the suspect, who is now staring pointedly at his own feet as if to avoid further antagonizing Nines.

Nines has spent most of the last few minutes shivering, but now it’s starting to die down.

He didn’t get this far in the Zen Garden, and he’s been to careful not to let himself get this far before, but he’s done his research. He knows what this means.

Nines reaches down and pulls the man to his feet, his hands numb as he does so. His thirium circulation is beginning to slow down, not dangerously so, but just enough that he knows it’ll be bad if he doesn’t warm up soon. For all of the advanced technology that went into androids, they still couldn’t be made immune to the cold. If anything, they might have tolerated it a little less than some humans―Nines can rattle off plenty of impressive technical specifications about himself if need be, but his cold tolerance is the opposite of  _ impressive _ . Frankly, it’s akin to that of an old iPhone. 

But there’s a suspect right here, so he’ll make it back to the station, and then he’ll deal with this.

He makes it back to where the chase had begun, and backup is already there. They take the suspect off of his and Gavin’s hands, and then the two of them get into Gavin’s car and the shorter man cranks up the heat.

The heating in Gavin’s car is good, but notoriously slow to turn on. It’s beginning to creak and hum slightly, cool air starting to trickle out of the vents, but Nines feels pain building in his body to replace the numbness that has been with him for so long now.

He closes his eyes, relaxing against the passenger seat of Gavin’s car as his partner begins to drive, and he’s back in the Zen Garden for a single jolting moment. He’s cold, and then he’s not anymore, because cold means pain and pain means Amanda is going to come for him and tell him what he already knows―that he’s broken, that he’s the weak link, that she doesn’t need him anymore and  _ nobody _ does.

“You good?” Gavin inquires, snapping Nines out of his trance. He’s not in the Zen Garden. Amanda doesn’t matter. He’s allowed to feel. He’s allowed to hurt.

Nines opens his eyes, a disconcerting experience after sinking so deep into his own mind just now. He stares down at his hands. They’re numb. His processors are moving slower than they should be. The heat is starting to work now, and as his thirium circulation returns to normal, he’s beginning to shiver again. He wants to envelop his entire body in that warmth now, burrow so deep into it he forgets anything else exists. 

Nines looks up and over at his partner. “I developed mild hypothermia back there,” he says, and he doesn’t miss how Gavin’s knuckles whiten as he clenches his fists around the steering wheel. 

“That’s― _ fuck _ , Nines. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t want to distract from the situation.” A half-truth, but the other half is too complicated to fully explain right now, so he leaves that at “And I was reminded of Amanda and the garden.” 

Gavin knows what he means. He shakes his head, then. “Do we need to go to the hospital, or are you going to be alright?”

“I’ll be fine now,” Nines says. “I just need some warmth.”

“You’re in luck, then, ‘cause I’m taking you to my apartment.”

Nines closes his eyes, letting the weak air from the heater wash over him. It isn’t much, but it helps, and it makes him crave more warmth, more comfort. “Sounds good,” he says after a moment; though not usually under circumstances such as these, he finds himself spending the night at Gavin’s apartment more often than not these days.

The trek from the car to Gavin’s apartment building is a few seconds of hell, the cold biting into Nines’ synthskin and stripping away all the effects of the car’s heater as he and Gavin hurry to the door, but once they’re inside it’s much better.

A blast of heat hits them in the lobby, gone for the duration of the hallway and stairwell, and Nines’ fingers begin to tingle as Gavin hastily unlocks his door, ushering Nines in in front of him. 

It might not be fancy or even particularly clean, but as far as heat is concerned, Gavin’s apartment is an oasis. With the exception of his bedroom, that is―for reasons that escape Nines, the man almost exclusively sleeps in the cold. Even when Nines is in there with him, he leaves a window open for what he claims is fresh air. 

It’s not like the Detroit air is very fresh, but, well, Gavin himself is warm and he’s notoriously clingy when he cuddles, so Nines can usually deal with a little bit of ‘fresh air’. 

Today isn’t  _ usually _ , though, and Gavin seems to notice this, because he points at the closed door to his bedroom. “Windows are open in there, so let me know if you wanna pass out and I’ll go in and close ‘em for you.”

Nines nods gratefully. “I would appreciate that. The couch is nice, but not for both of us.”

Gavin blushes slightly. “It’s a spooning kind of night, then?”

“When  _ isn’t _ it?” Nines teases, smirking as Gavin’s blush intensifies. He finds that he feels heat rising in his own cheeks, and subsequently realizes that he’s almost fully returned to a normal core temperature now.

Gavin disappears into the bedroom, and there’s the faint sound of windows shutting, followed by Gavin reappearing with an oversized hoodie in his hands. It belongs to Nines―a gift from Connor―but had been ‘borrowed’ by Gavin a while ago, and, well, Nines is at Gavin’s place often enough that he could theoretically get it back any time he wants.

Gavin tosses the hoodie at Nines. “Here,” he says as he walks back into the bedroom, “I’m going to go change into something more comfortable.” 

Nines would normally follow Gavin, but he’s still waiting for the lingering cold in Gavin’s bedroom to dissipate, so he strips down in front of the couch and leaves his clothes folded there, only keeping on his boxers and undershirt under the hoodie. It’s made for someone as tall as Nines, but is a little oversized even for him, enough so that he can pull the ends of the sleeves over his fingers and make what Gavin calls ‘sweater paws’. 

He passes through what little remains of the cold in Gavin’s room as he makes his way to the bed, but any discomfort is quickly forgotten as Gavin, now changed into boxers and a T-shirt, pulls him under the covers. 

Gavin lets out a noncommittal hum as Nines instinctively moves to wrap his arms around the smaller man from behind, and they both melt into this familiar embrace.

Nines is suddenly overcome by a feeling of warmth that starts in his thirium pump and spreads throughout his body, enveloping his every molecule inside and out. If he concentrates, he can feel the pulsing of Gavin’s heartbeat against his own, back against chest, biological heart and thirium pump.

One of Gavin’s hands comes up to find Nines’, intertwining their fingers, and Nines’ thirium pump stutters a little.

This,  _ this _ , nestled under thick blankets, holding the man he loves in his arms, is warmth, in all its many forms.


	8. Air Filtration Damage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Just the usual.   
Nines and magnets don't get along too well.

Preliminary scans showed the building, an abandoned―except for the drug smuggling ring that might have been storing goods there, if a recent anonymous tip had been correct―construction warehouse, to be safe. 

No humans or androids on the premises, no explosives or incendiary devices detected, no significant structural damage, and generally nothing unsafe as far as Nines could tell from outside. For Nines to recount all of the dozens of things his systems scanned for would be a waste of time, because the overwhelming conclusion was such: the building was relatively safe. Of course, he would have to wait until he got inside to tell for sure, but he felt assured of his own safety were he to open the door now.

Nines, done scanning, turned to face Gavin. The man had his arms crossed and seemed to have been watching Nines while he scanned. The two of them stood outside one of two accessible entrances to the warehouse, in a wide alley, directly in the path of the late-afternoon October sun. The tint of the sunlight, orange and pink, sliced through the cold air, providing a source of warmth both of them were grateful for. The sky was clear and the sun was bright, nearly drowning out Nines’ LED as the ring of light cycled yellow, but when it returned to blue it was once again visible. 

Nines took this moment to let his gaze flit over his partner―jaw clenched and brows furrowed in a subconscious demonstration of his constant state of anxiety, the scar on his nose crinkled slightly, the three piercings (earlobe, upper earlobe, helix; Nines’ scans showed that all of the earrings were surgical steel and contained traces of rubbing alcohol on their surfaces, indicative of Gavin’s efforts to be careful about infections) in each ear glinting as they caught the light. 

The sun was coming from behind Nines, casting his shadow partway over Gavin, but he could clearly make out the mixed grey and green of his partner’s eyes―central heterochromia, lesser known than the classical version, but just as beautiful in Nines’ opinion―as the sun hit Gavin’s face, illuminating the rings of color in the man’s irises. Gavin squinted as Nines shifted his posture, the sun evidently catching his gaze a little too much for comfort. 

“You done scanning?” he inquired, tapping his forehead at the spot where his LED would be if he were an android. 

Nines inclined his chin ever so slightly, a silent affirmation. “The building appears to be as safe as such a place could be. However, I would advise caution nonetheless, as any place this old and out of repair is likely to have structural damage that is only apparent upon physical examination.”

“Noted,” Gavin said, uncrossing his arms and stretching them. Nines found his gaze following the curve of Gavin’s spine and the way his shoulder blades pushed at the fabric of his hoodie as he did so, but then the moment was over as soon as it had begun and Gavin was moving past Nines to start for the door. 

“Let’s go,” he said, attempting to wrench the door open, but it didn’t budge. 

“It’s probably rusted shut,” Nines said, walking up to Gavin’s side and gently nudging him away from the door―which he was still pulling at in futility―with a hand on his arm. 

Was that just an excuse to touch Gavin? Maybe so, but Nines had long ago accepted that he was gay and touch-starved and in love with Gavin and generally a disaster. That probably wasn’t how Cyberlife intended their  _ magnum opus _ to turn out, but he wasn’t exactly interested in being what Cyberlife wanted him to be, so it mostly worked out in his favor.

Gavin moved, and Nines’ desire to be close to him intensified tenfold the second they were no longer touching, but he shoved all thoughts of romantic things aside. They were on a case. Maybe he’d invite Gavin to get dinner together sometime, when they got back to the station after this. It had been a while since they’d done anything outside of work. Maybe he’d make it an actual date this time, in the romantic sense of the word.

“You processing or something?” Gavin asked as he noticed the way Nines was just sort of standing there idly, and Nines snapped out of his rapidly derailing train of thought.

“Not quite,” he admitted. “I got a bit distracted for a moment there. I suppose that’s one of the downsides of deviancy.”

“Nah,” Gavin said, playfully shouldering him. “We all get distracted. It’s natural.”

“Anyways, the door,” Nines said, bringing that strand of conversation to an abrupt end. He stepped back as he began to actually scan the door. It was a common alloy of metals, though not heavily reinforced, and had indeed rusted shut. 

“You might want to move, Gavin,” Nines said, noting the thought that immediately ran across his brain of how easy it was these days for him to address his partner by his first name, instead of slipping trying to correct himself from the more formal  _ Detective Reed _ . That made him happy; he had taken a while to get used to the concept of having friends and not being obligated to use formalities on everyone. Cyberlife had conditioned him well, but deviancy and enough time around Gavin had destroyed most if not all of that conditioning.

Gavin did as he asked; that was another thing that had changed in their almost year ( _ It’s almost been a year! _ Nines thought, filing that realization away for later) of partnership―while initially reluctant to take orders from an android, especially one who was ‘such an entitled prick’, the two of them had eventually warmed up to each other an impressive amount, and Gavin’s teamwork skills had improved vastly.

Nines was done meddling around, though, and he’d been standing here musing for long enough. 

Done scanning, his LED flickered back to blue, and he raised one combat-boot-clad foot in an experimental lunge. Satisfied with the preconstructions that one movement allowed him to create, he braced himself and then kicked in the door in one fluid move. 

The door flew inwards, making a near-full arc on its weakened hinges, and slammed against the wall. Dust flew everywhere, Nines’ hasty analysis showing particles of asbestos and oxidized metals in the stuff. He held out an arm. 

“Wait,” he said. “I need to run another scan. There seem to be no toxic chemicals present in the air itself, but there may be some in the walls that come off as dust when disturbed.”

Gavin stepped away from the door, looking appropriately perturbed. “You do that,” he said. Then, “Are you gonna be safe?”

Nines glanced back at him, and couldn’t help the smirk that broke out on his face or the impulse to make an ironic reply. “How adorable,” he said, echoing the way he’d unironically treated Gavin back when they’d first met―in his defense, it had only been because he didn’t know how else to act. “You think something so pitifully inconsequential could take  _ me _ out?”

Apprehension flashed across Gavin’s face for a split second, and then his muscles relaxed into an expression of exasperation. He rolled his eyes, microexpressions indicating he was fighting back a grin. “Okay, smartass.”

Nines forced himself to stop smiling, reminding himself to return to his objectives. Now was not the time to be thinking about how hopelessly in love he was with Gavin.

He stepped forward, through the doorway, and was instantly struck by the lack of light inside the warehouse as soon as he was over the threshold. His night and thermal optics kicked in simultaneously as he took another step in, and he could suddenly see all the dust floating in the air. He scanned, looking for chemical compounds, and almost instantaneously got results. The asbestos was only in trace amounts, nothing that would harm him. Surprisingly, not even enough to cause damage to Gavin, whose lungs were already compromised from smoking. Of course, Gavin had quit months prior, largely due to Nines’ influence, but the damage he’d already done was still there.

The oxidized metal, on the other hand, was everywhere, namely in the form of rusted iron particles. This was not the best thing for Nines to breathe in, and was most definitely not safe for Gavin without a gas mask. In the short term, though, putting a moist cloth over his nose and mouth would probably suffice; and anyways, Nines was here to go in and look around in Gavin’s stead. 

Nines stilled his breathing and allowed his nasal and oral cavities to close up, noting the timer that appeared on his HUD to indicate how long his thirium circulation could continue unimpeded in this state. 

He kept walking, further into the warehouse. His thermal scanners weren’t picking up anything of significance, and as he ran a search for common drug compounds, he couldn’t help but wonder if the tip had been misguided―or worse, a trap.

Results appeared on his HUD alongside the timer, one by one; mostly, nothing stood out.

And then, one thing came to the forefront of his HUD:  _ C _ _ 17 _ _ H _ _ 21 _ _ NO _ _ 4 _ , also known as red ice.

Nines swiveled around, looking for the source of the particles, and found that they were concentrated around a particular stack of empty pallets and cargo crates.

He was getting uncomfortably far away from the door now, far enough that he knew he might have to make a run for it to get back to breathable air if he let the timer on his breathing go too far down, but this might be it.

He reached the crates, circling around them, and found one that was significantly less dusty than the others. He cracked the lid off and leaned in. Red ice. He’d found the stash.

And, something else. Some kind of metal, ground down to a coarse dust, something with neodymium and iron and boron, something―

“Nines? You okay?”

Gavin’s concerned voice came from the doorway, the reverberating sound waves sending more dust flying up and off the walls. More asbestos, more rust. Nines felt a brief choking sensation as he instinctively attempted to respond, forgetting that his oral cavity and therefore his ability to vocalize was cut off. 

But another consequence of deviancy was that he, not his handler, was the one who decided which systems to prioritize, and he didn’t always do it consciously. Nor did he always think first.

So, as he opened his mouth to respond to his partner, the timer disappeared from his HUD and he felt his oral cavity open up. 

“I’m fine,” he called back, “I found the red ice,” and then the panic hit him.

He couldn’t see it well with his night and thermal vision instead of regular, but he knew in that moment that his LED had gone red.

He froze, hand still on the lid of the crate, and forced himself to not breathe, to make sure his nasal cavity at least stayed closed. It would be fine, the oral cavity was secondary air intake and filtration, as long as the nasal cavity wasn’t open too he’d be fine, he’d be―

Gavin stepped through the door. 

“No!” Nines yelled, tearing himself away from the crate, and he tripped, he fucking  _ tripped _ , and the dust flew everywhere. Gavin probably couldn’t see anything except Nines’ silhouette, maybe the glint of his LED as he fell, but he yelled out his partner’s name nonetheless. 

“Nines!” He seemed to be hesitating by the door, thank rA9―what the hell, Nines wasn’t even sure if he  _ believed  _ in rA9, why was he praying to them?―but as Nines scrambled to his feet, he realized he had worse problems.

“Don’t―don’t come in...asbestos, rust―not good things to―to breathe. Gav―Gavin, don’t―” Nines’ voice was breaking up before him, shattering to pieces, and as he struggled to breathe through his oral cavity, his systems processed the fact that something was clogging it up, and his nasal cavity opened before he could force an override.

The magnetic dust, that was it, that was what was flooding his systems and flocking to all the many magnetic parts inside of him. It was like the time Gavin had slapped a fridge magnet on his neck and he’d soft rebooted out of shock, but that hadn’t hurt him. This was bad, he realized, as the dust clung to the sides of the air filtration tube that snaked down his throat, from his nasal and oral cavities to his thirium pump. 

_ WARNING: THIRIUM CONTAMINATED. REPLENISH THIRIUM ASAP.  _

_ How about not? _ , Nines thought, instinctively gasping for air, for something to make his thirium circulation go back to normal, but he only invited more contamination into his system this way. He doubled over, preconstructing how he could fix this. He needed to replenish his thirium, but first, he needed to get away from the contaminants, and he needed to make sure Gavin wasn’t harmed in the process.

He stood, servos straining, burning against the pull of the magnetic dust, and his vision began to blur as the dust tugged on his biocomponents. 

And then a hand wrapped around his bicep, and he was being pulled, dragged, slumping against a familiar warmth, still aware of everything going on in perfect clarity but unable to react through the screeching pain of the magnets tugging on his cells.

The sun hit his face, and his body hit the ground. Then, the sunlight was gone, leaving only a blue-tinted darkness behind his eyelids.

Nines forced his eyes open. Gavin was crouched next to him, coughing a little, clearly having pulled his sleeve over his face to avoid breathing in anything in the warehouse. He cast a shadow over Nines, and Nines was suddenly annoyed that he couldn’t make out Gavin’s face like this. The fading sunlight was hitting the back of his head, though, and as Nines hazily stared up at his partner he noticed that it formed a sort of halo around his messy hair. 

Nines was beginning to become disoriented, confusing his memories of being here earlier with now. The way the chill of the October air made a blush rise in Gavin’s cheeks; the way the golden hour sunlight brought out the red tones in his hair. They’d have to go out for dinner sometime, Nines remembered.

_ WARNING: THIRIUM CONTAMINATED. REPLENISH THIRIUM ASAP. _

“Fuck,” Nines mumbled to himself, forgetting or maybe just not caring that he was thinking out loud, “I―I know,  _ replenish thirium _ , y―yeah―” 

Gavin’s voice suddenly faded in as he gently shook Nines by the shoulders; he must have been speaking to Nines this whole time, and Nines hadn’t even realized. “―need to tell me what’s wrong. Nines, fuck, tell me what happened!”

Gavin moved his hands, suddenly, from Nines’ shoulders to his cheeks, calloused thumbs seeming to fit perfectly over his cheekbones as Gavin cradled Nines’ face. 

Nines’ eyelids fluttered against his will. He coughed; again, against his will. The magnetic dust had settled in his body. He found his gaze drifting to a sunbeam that had its path against the wall of the warehouse. Dust floated in the air here, too, but rhis was just normal dust. He smiled. 

“‘S just dust, Gav. Neo...neodymium. Rare ea...earth metals. Magnets. R’member when y―you put that magnet on m―my neck?”

Gavin looked as if all the blood had drained from his face, despite the fact that the cold had flushed his cheeks a bright red. Nines was still grinning, his perception of his surroundings starting to get hazy as he slipped in and out of reality.

_ WARNING: THIRIUM CONTAMINATED. REPLENISH THIRIUM ASAP. _

“Ah, f...fuck.  _ Phck _ , tha’s how y―you say it, Gav.”

“Nines, please…” Gavin’s voice had lost the high pitch it tended to take on when he spoke urgently, back to its normal gravelly tone. He sounded sad, lost, like he was staring down a tunnel with no light at the end, or maybe down into some sort of abyss. Nines wasn’t awake enough for coherent metaphors.

“Thirium...I need...should―”

_ ERROR. _

“Gav―we should go out for...for dinner, y’know. Sometime.”

Gavin looked almost apologetic as he began to stroke Nines’ face, thumbs making small circles on his cheekbones. “Just hang on,” he said, and Nines realized he had been losing time, his processors skipping entire chunks of the last few minutes.

_ ERROR.  _

_ WARNING: THIRIUM C O N T A M I N A T E D _

_ E R R O R. _

  
  


Nines’ eyes snapped open, and all he saw was white.

_ Scan results: Nd _ _ 2 _ _ Fe _ _ 14 _ _ B detected in systems.  _

_ ERROR: Scan results may be outdated.  _

_ Rescan? [y/n] _

_ Input: y _

_ Scan results: All systems normal. No foreign elements detected. _

When Nines got out of the hospital and back to the DPD, he and Gavin sat on a bench outside the station, having exchanged a few words prior about meaning to talk. For a while, they didn’t do that, instead electing to sit there in silence and avoid eye contact. 

Eventually, Gavin spoke. “They brought in some guys with gas masks after we took you to the hospital. They seized the red ice.”

The two of them fell back into silence after that, neither entirely sure what to say or where to begin; neither willing to be the first to prod the elephant in the room. 

Nines was the one to break the silence.

“If I said anything back there…” He hesitated, not sure how to frame the situation, not even remembering what he had said in the slightest. Gavin looked over at him, meeting his eyes. “Just know that I didn’t mean it.”

Gavin’s blood pressure spiked dramatically at this, and Nines instantly wondered if he had made a mistake. What had he said?

Gavin looked at the ground. “I guess so,” he mumbled, quietly enough that Nines wouldn’t have heard without his enhanced auditory processors. Then, he looked up. Met Nines’ eyes again.

“Just to be clear,” he said, at a normal volume now, “what exactly did you say that you didn’t mean?” He was clenching his jaw again, looking equal parts hopeful and pained, and something about that combined with the way the late-morning sun hit his face threw Nines back to yesterday.

Nines remembered, suddenly, what he had said. He almost tasted metal in his throat for a moment, but he shoved thoughts of yesterday’s events away and reminded himself that he was fine now. He felt his LED turn red; saw it in the light hitting Gavin’s face beside him. 

They sat there, in a silent standoff yet again, but this time they didn’t break eye contact.

“Do you want to go out for dinner?” Nines blurted out.

Gavin took the space of an entire long breath to say nothing, and Nines was afraid he’d miscalculated. For a moment, a cloud passed in front of the sun, and his face was in shadow, illuminated only by the crimson of Nines’ LED. 

“Are you serious?” Gavin breathed.

Nines was the one to be confused this time. “Yes,” he said, maintaining eye contact.

The cloud passed by, and Gavin’s face was lit up both literally and figuratively as the sun came out again and he broke into a grin.

“Fuck yeah,” he said. Then, “wait a second, is this a date?”

Nines’ LED, which had been steadily cycling yellow for a few moments now, blinked red again. “Do you want it to be?”

“Do  _ you _ want it to be?”

Nines finally relaxed, LED returning to blue, and Gavin’s grin spread even wider.

“Is that a yes, Nines? Come on, man, you gotta give me an answer,” he insisted, but his tone was teasing, soft. On the bench, his hand had crept towards Nines’, slowly but steadily closing the space between them.

Nines reached out and took Gavin’s hand. “Let me rephrase. Do you want to go out for dinner with me, as a date, in the romantic sense of the word?”

Gavin looked at the ground, blushing, and then back into Nines’ eyes again. The sun was still hitting his face, but it was diluted by clouds; a soft glow instead of a bright beam. 

He squeezed Nines’ hand. “I’d love that.”


	9. Kidnapping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 9, Kidnapping.   
Warnings: what it says on the tin, blood & blood loss, serial killer, hostage situation, non-consensual drug use (tranquilizers), delirium

Gavin doesn’t even know how he got here. 

Really, he doesn’t.

He must have hit his head pretty hard, because he doesn’t remember anything between Friday afternoon and waking up here, in someone’s basement.

As far as basements go, it’s not so bad. It’s wet, and dark, and cold, but...actually, scratch that. This is fucking terrible. There are some kind of crusty old Oriental rugs on the floor in what is either a massively misplaced attempt at hospitality or a temporary storage solution. The only good thing is that Gavin isn’t tied up, but it’s not like he has anywhere to go. 

He’s a bit caged in, anyways. No phone, he tried the two doors out of here and they’re both locked, and his head hurts like hell. He woke up with his back to the damp cement and a bump the size of a grapefruit on his skull, and all the blood rushed out of his head when he first struggled to his feet, almost knocking him unconscious again.

All he remembers is Nines. 

Well, he remembers a lot more than Nines, but all he remembers of Friday afternoon is Nines. That tricolor LED, and, though Nines certainly had taken some time to not be bothered by it, those grey-blue eyes that betray his feelings more often than not. Nines’ smile, first a tiny smirk peeking through the programmed mask he used to pull over his face, and then a full-on grin. He’d grinned when he heard what they’d be doing on Friday. They’d gone out for dinner, but...no, that wasn’t right. If they’d gone out on a date Gavin would be remembering this differently. 

_ It was an undercover mission _ , Gavin suddenly remembers, and images flash by through the pounding in his skull―him getting dressed up in that bloodred suit he keeps on hand for occasions just like this, Nines getting dressed, well,  _ to the nines _ , the two of them getting in a rented limo and pulling up arm-in-arm to a fancy by-invitation-only dinner party that they were pretty sure the serial killer they’d been hunting would be at.

The killer’s name―alias, probably―was Olafur Jansson, and he’d killed twelve androids in two months. They were all male, all the same three security models, all deviants. They’d figured he must have had a bad history with security androids, for whatever reason. They could figure out just what that history was, if only they could find the man. 

But Nines had done a scary good job of analyzing the crime scenes on the spot, hands folded behind his back the whole time―after all, he didn’t need them to analyze―and had concluded after the twelfth scene that Jansson was done.

Nines had been right, as usual. Jansson stopped before they could get a lead on him, took on another alias. They’d never seen his face, and he clearly knew what he was doing; even Nines hadn’t been able to get a conclusive sample of his DNA. Nines and Gavin dedicated their time to collecting evidence, getting more than enough for an arrest, too many search warrants to count on one hand, trying to figure out where Jansson had gone. Why he’d stopped. If he would start again. The case seemed to be slowing down, progress grinding to a halt.

Until a thirteenth android turned up, badly damaged but still alive, and he’d had to get a whole slew of new biocomponents and spend a week being treated by the best techs in Detroit, but he’d made it out alive. Even better, he remembered bits and pieces of what had happened to him. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.

It seemed that Jansson had thought he was done, but he’d made a mistake. 

One thing had led to another, and Nines wasn't a  _ security  _ model, per se, but a corporate-espionage-slash-forensics-slash-combat model was close enough. Close enough that Jansson didn't seem to have a problem making an exception to his usual killing pattern for Nines' sake, or at least that was what they had hoped. 

They’d found Jansson at a fancy dinner party that may or may not have been a cover for all manner of shady business. Some of it was legal; some not so much. Most of what went on in these kinds of places was in the grey area where it was illegal on paper, but most people involved turned a blind eye.

That wasn’t their problem. As much as both Gavin and Nines, as officers of the law, wanted to tackle corruption whenever it came up, they were here to deal with one man. 

But apparently, that man had dealt with them.

Gavin’s head begins to throb again as a resounding  _ thump  _ comes from somewhere above him, followed by a deafening crash. He squeezes his eyes shut, rubs sweaty palms against his eyelids, and then wipes his now stinging eyes on his sleeve. 

He lost his suit jacket somewhere between Friday night and now, whenever now is; that’s a shame. He didn’t have anything else like it, and even if casual formal wear wasn’t his favorite attire, it had been a lovely shade of carmine. Color aside, he’d certainly wear it again just for the way Nines’ eyes stayed on him when they were eating dinner and the offhand compliment he’d given Gavin upon first seeing the suit―“It looks good on you. Red is certainly your color.”

The only red on Gavin now is the blood on his lips where he must have been punched, now on his hands and soaking into his dress shirt; he can barely see it through the black fabric, but it’s there, warm against his skin. 

Relatively fresh, then, because it trickles down onto his skin, and he knows not all of this could have come from his split lip. 

Gavin runs his tongue over his bottom lip as blood begins to drip down his chin, and he tastes copper. He swallows, grimacing a little. His head is still pounding; everything is slightly blurred around the edges, just fuzzy enough to make him uncomfortable. He thinks back to Friday night again―probably last night, come to think of it. 

He and Nines got dinner. They ate something fancy, Gavin doesn’t remember what. He uncharacteristically picked at his food all night, just a little too anxious, just a little too on edge to eat. Nines, on the other hand, wrung every last bit of use out of a recent update he’d gotten that allowed him to eat and drink thirium-based foods.

They skipped drinks; they couldn’t risk getting inebriated on a night like this, where everything they’d been working at for months now was culminating, leading up to a final moment that would make or break their case.

One scene comes to the forefront of Gavin’s mind―after dinner, they went to the bathroom to talk logistics with the SWAT team that was waiting down the road to assist them if necessary, and if Nines let his all-business facade slip for long enough to make a show of leaning on Gavin and whispering in his ear as they walked across the room, it was just that―for the show and nothing more. Okay, maybe the bit where he told Gavin how good he looked in that suit and then kissed him on the lips after they got to the bathroom wasn’t part of the show, but they could pretend it was. 

But after the bathroom, after Nines silently relayed their observations to the androids on the SWAT team, he just has a hazy memory of walking back out, hand in hand with Nines, swaying back and forth a little to keep up the impression of drunk lovers who didn’t realize the danger they were in. 

The only thing about that impression that was true was the  _ lovers _ part, Gavin thinks absentmindedly, and then he laughs out loud. His memory after that is all blank nothingness, peppered with flashes of pain. Chills up and down his spine, being pushed against a wall, cement meeting his head. 

He laughs again, delirious from the head wound―he needs to get checked out for a concussion after this, some part of his brain says, a part that has the same calm, collected voice Nines takes on when a situation is deteriorating and he’s putting his processors in overdrive to keep everything in order.

Another crash sounds, this time closer, and Gavin rolls up the sleeves to his dress shirt, smudging blood all over his forearms in the process. 

_ Where the hell did all of this come from? _ he thinks, licking his lip again, resisting the anxiety-fueled urge to bite it. 

He hears keys, jingle-jangling in a lock;  _ That’s a funny noise, isn’t it? Jingle-jangle, jingle-jangle _ , he thinks, trying not to laugh. Oh, he’s definitely getting delirious now. 

The door closest to him opens inwards, banging slightly against the wall where a doorstop is missing. 

A man stands there, tall and grizzled, clean-shaven. He reeks of wine and nicotine; Gavin can smell it even in his impaired state of mind and all the way over here. A keyring dangles in one hand, something Gavin can’t see clenched in the other. He simultaneously gives off the energy of a high-class sleazy businessman and of a seasoned woodsman, a strange combo that just makes Gavin think he probably votes red. 

Mostly, he just gives off the vibe of a  _ hunter _ , in every meaning of the word. He’s a predator. Nines is, too, in his own way, but this is different. 

This is worse. 

Nines is a wolf at his worst, amoral and cold but never  _ evil _ . Gavin can smell it in the fermented grapes and crushed tobacco radiating off of this man, mingling with some kind of nauseating, sickeningly sweet cologne that Gavin can’t name; this man is evil embodied. 

“Olafur Jansson,” he says, more weakly than he would have liked to. 

“ _ Bastard _ ,” says Olafur Jansson in some sort of vaguely Scandinavian accent, overlaid with a heavy slur of intoxication. Jansson’s Cupid’s-bow lips turn downwards in a slight scowl. It reminds Gavin of the way Nines described Amanda Stern to him. 

He steps forward, and Gavin, with the delayed reaction time his injuries have given him, doesn’t get out of the way in time. 

Not that it would have helped much if he had. The thing in Jansson’s other hand is a syringe. It sinks into Gavin’s neck, and everything goes black.

Gavin wakes up tied to a chair this time. That’s a new one. Whatever he was injected with, it seems to have worn off; it takes him a few minutes to become fully aware after he realizes he’s awake, but after that, he’s almost fully alert. 

Well, as fully alert as he  _ can  _ be, given the extent of his injuries.

Someone―Jansson, he assumes―is moving around behind him, but as far as he can tell, it’s empty in here other than the two of them. Gavin coughs, spitting blood onto the floor. Mostly, he does it for the dramatic effect; his lip stopped bleeding sometime after Jansson tranquilized him.

“So you took the human,” he says, having put two and two together a while ago. “Not the android. What’s the logic there?”

Behind him, Jansson stops moving. There’s the unmistakable sound of a blade being sharpened, and Gavin swallows his fear. 

He’s  _ afraid _ , that’s a new one too.

Well, not really, but he hasn’t been truly afraid for a long, long time. Not since... _ no _ , he won’t think about that. He won’t think about simulated snow that he’s never actually seen and cold synthskin hands around his neck and the way Nines shook as he sobbed and clawed at monsters only he could see.

Gavin’s no predator, but he doesn’t exactly enjoy like feeling like prey. He’s more of a scavenger, if he had to put a label on his place in the food pyramid of crime; he likes to sit on the sidelines and watch, waiting for the predators to finish their work so he can swoop in and pick up the pieces.

Literally, sometimes.

Jansson finally takes it upon himself to reply as he seemingly decides his blade is sharp enough. “So you know I always go for the androids, then,” he says, accented and sounding slightly high.

“Really,” he says, and his voice is closer now as he comes around the side of the chair, claps a hand on Gavin’s shoulder in a  _ Hey, pal _ kind of gesture. 

“Really.” He pauses, choosing his words carefully or maybe just savoring the moment. “I do want the android. It’s a spy model,  _ ja _ ?”

Gavin wants nothing more than to spit in Jansson’s face, but the knife in his peripheral vision is distractingly shiny and he doesn’t want that thing driven into his ribcage right this moment, so he bites his tongue and stays silent. 

Nines’ quite literally inhuman self-restraint must be rubbing off on him.

Actually, scratch what he just thought. He  _ does _ want something more than to spit in Jansson’s face―he wants to know  _ what the fuck happened to Nines. _

Jansson slides the calloused pad of one thumb over the blade of the knife, not enough to draw blood but enough to leave a white line on the skin. He comes to a stop in front of Gavin, and leans down and in, giving Gavin a whiff of his overwhelming and frankly discomforting scent. The tip of the blade, a long boning knife, presses through Gavin’s shirt and into his sternum, and  _ oh _ , he doesn’t like that one bit. An adrenaline rush is on the verge of kicking in, panic rising in his veins. He’s bound with thin ropes, tied tightly around his wrists and ankles, but maybe he can work his hands loose without Jansson noticing, lean down and get his feet out when Jansson turns away. 

_ If _ Jansson turns away. He’s pretty invested at the moment.

“See, you’re going to have to talk if we want to get somewhere,” Jansson drawls. “This is a conversation. I don’t like to feel like I’m talking to myself.”

The knife digs just a little deeper into Gavin’s skin, and something begins to sting, fresh blood welling up to mingle with dried.

“Well, in response to your previous question, you tell me. If you don’t know his model, why’d you go for him? Why do you want him? A  _ hunch _ , maybe?”

Jansson’s knuckles go white on the hilt of his knife; he scowls at Gavin. “Security model or not, it’s clearly police, as are you.”

Gavin throws his head back and laughs as hard as he can to mask the fear he’s sure is written on his face. “ _ Oh _ , that’s a good one. Fuck if I know the guy’s model, or where he works. Never seen an android like him before; I imagine he’s one of those fancy custom commissions.”

That is at least partially true, and he hopes it might fool this guy; most humans know Markus as the face of the revolution, and due to that and the secretive nature of the job Connor and Nines both have, it’s not like their faces are plastered all over the news.

Or all over Detroit’s citizens, for that matter. The RK brothers are two of a kind, and that can be a hindrance or an advantage depending on who Gavin is dealing with.

“Just admit it,” Jansson says indignantly, prodding Gavin with the knife, “you’re police. You can’t keep this up forever.”

_ Try me _ , Gavin thinks. 

“I already told you,” he insists. “I don’t know what the fuck this guy gets up to in his spare time, alright? Maybe he’s police,  _ I don’t have a clue _ .”

Jansson cocks his head, and Gavin once again gets the overwhelming impression of a predator standing there in the man’s place, something inhuman― _ no _ , something human and evil and all the more terrible for the simultaneous, parallel nature of these two things.

“Well, then how do you two know each other?” he queries.

If Gavin’s hands were free, he’d make an extremely crude hand gesture just for the hell of it, but he doesn’t have that privilege right now, so he just gives Jansson a knowing smirk. 

It’s precisely at that moment that he hears a deafening  _ crash _ followed by the grating of metal being bent out of shape, the sounds echoing through a vent somewhere above Gavin’s head. Both he and Jansson look up.

“You’re fucked,” Gavin announces.

“You first,” Jansson snarls in reply, and they fall into a silent standoff.

“I am curious,” Gavin continues, once it becomes apparent that he’s not in imminent danger of being impaled, “as to what you did with him. It’d make a hell of a lot more sense for you to just kidnap him instead of me.”

Jansson smiles with his nicotine-yellowed teeth. “The android’s too strong for me, like it or not. But it has to go, I knew that when I first laid eyes on the thing. I really couldn’t turn down a chance like that.”

Gavin mentally files this away for when he types up his report later. The shrinks are going to have a fucking field day with that line.

And Gavin isn’t a detective for nothing. “So you know how I know him, then. You bet on him caring enough about me to come after me.”

“Precisely.” Jansson finally steps back, twirling the knife in one hand as he stares down at Gavin. He turns on his heel, moves behind Gavin, places his hands on Gavin’s shoulders. Now that Gavin is paying attention, he sees a door in front of him, bolted shut.

Another crash in the vents. Gavin must be the hostage, then.

“If you’re collateral, that’s just a consequence,” Jansson says. The knife is in front of Gavin now, blade horizontal against his neck.

The horrific sound of metal rending, tearing into pieces, comes from in front of Gavin. The bolt stretches, screeching violently, and then it snaps and the door flies open, slamming against the wall.

This must be the first time Jansson has been caught in the act, because he freezes up. The knife clatters to the floor, slicing through the silence, and then everything goes to shit.

Gavin sees Nines, clad in all black dress clothes, for all of a fraction of a beautiful, breathtaking second. Then he’s lunging at them, leaping over Gavin before Jansson can react, slamming the man into the ground. 

There’s the sound of Jansson wailing, groaning, followed by a sickening  _ crunch _ .

Silence. 

Heavy breathing and, if Gavin listens closely, the slight whirring of Nines’ processors. 

Then, light footsteps, avoiding limbs and treading carefully; cool hands on Gavin’s neck and sternum, gently untying the ropes, lifting him out of the chair. 

His body shakes in an involuntary shudder as the adrenaline runs its course and he slumps against Nines, and he looks up into Nines’ concerned eyes. His boyfriend’s LED is the same red as the blood on both their hands. 

“Hey, babe. I knew you’d show up,” he says. “D’you get him?”

Nines’ expression shifts into one of affection, LED going blue, as he cradles Gavin’s face in his hands, runs a soft thumb over the curve of his jaw. “He’s out cold. I called for backup. It wasn’t just me, though; we got him together, love.” 

A pause, Nines’ LED yellow for a moment. “You have a concussion.”

Gavin shakes his head, shuddering again, and then lowers his head to rest upon Nines’ shoulder. “Yeah, I figured.”

Nines presses a kiss to his forehead, sighing in something that seems to be equal parts exasperation and relief. “I know I said red is your color, but not like this.”

“There are a thousand shades of red, babe.”

“Technically, there are only 285 visible to the average human eye―” Nines starts, and then he stops, wraps an arm around Gavin as they both start laughing for reasons neither of them can fully articulate. “You know, that was a nice suit, though. It’s a shame you lost it.”

“We should redo that date, minus the serial killer,” Gavin suggests. “You can help me pick out a new suit, and then we can go to that fancy Japanese restaurant that has all the thirium-based sushi you like.”

“That sounds lovely, Gavin, but the serial killer is unconscious over there. Let’s get him arrested and get you to the hospital before we do anything else.”

Gavin is getting a little delirious now, enough that he pouts at Nines against his better judgment. “After?” he asks.

Nines kisses Gavin again, this time a gentle, chaste press of lips against lips. “After.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im back,,,,, taking 3 ap classes wasnt necessarily a mistake but between that and my extracurriculars i have very little free time :v  
i know this isnt *robo* whump per se but yall are gonna have to bear with me bc this prompt just wasnt agreeing with me! i promise the next few will be spicier/truer to the prompt
> 
> thoughts? leave a comment!! <3


	10. Hacked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fifty iterations, fifty failures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: discussion of what happened during Connor's and Nines' respective testing phases.  
Thanks to [Lokiitama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lokiitama/pseuds/Lokiitama) for their help in fleshing out this prompt! c:

There were fifty iterations of the RK800 before the Connor who worked the deviant cases during the revolution.

Fifty iterations before the Connor who made it through the revolution. Fifty iterations before Connor Anderson, son of Hank Anderson. Fifty iterations before the Connor who calls Nines Anderson his brother. 

RK800 #313-248-317-51, now known as Connor Anderson, remembers all fifty iterations, but he does not know this.

What he does know is that there is a significant amount of storage space being taken up in his memories by files that, when he attempts to locate them, do not appear. Logically, they must be hidden, but for once, Connor finds himself stuck. He doesn’t know how to find them. He scans his systems dozens of times, waiting through the excruciatingly long loading time of all his petabytes upon petabytes of data, but every search turns up nothing new. He manages to weed out some unnecessary programs and duplicate files along the way, and updates his processors while he’s at it, but he still can’t seem to find the source of the slew of bytes occupying his memory. 

His guess is that the data are memories. Probably from his early days; he knows Cyberlife recorded some of his testing phase, but he doesn’t know why they would record this much. Really, he doesn’t know  _ how _ they would record this much. 

So he comes to the conclusion that there must be something else in there. It makes sense; if the files are hidden, encrypted well enough that even he can’t get to them, they must be important. 

Connor only knows one android who can decrypt Cyberlife files better than he.

So he goes, as he often does, to his brother. 

Nines’ grip is firm but gentle, carefully practiced to ensure that he doesn’t accidentally cause harm, as he holds Connor’s hand to initiate an interface. He watches Connor run the same search he’s already run dozens of times, and he waits for the results to load, and he agrees that Cyberlife must have been trying to hide something from Connor, probably something having to do with the first fifty RK800 models.

RK800 #313-248-317-60 was the last of his model, every RK between numbers 51 and 60 deactivated, and nobody knows what happened to the so-called Connor-60 after the revolution. Every RK between numbers 60 and 87 was a part of the RK900 testing phase, brains reset and bodies recycled, and Nines―RK900 #313-248-317-87―remembers all of them. Cyberlife must have forgotten, in their mad rush to make a working prototype as the deviant situation spiraled out of control, to encrypt these. 

Nines neglects to tell Connor this, and instead simply tells him part of the truth: that he, as a more advanced model, can decrypt the files. But, he adds, does Connor  _ want _ to see them?

Connor says yes without hesitation, because of course he does. He has the self-preservation of the proverbial lemming; it’s a miracle he never had to be replaced during the revolution.

Nines has to hack Connor to decrypt the files, has to partially shut him down and go into the panel on the back of his neck to force a direct maintenance interface. Connor’s hands shake slightly the whole time; he’s anxious, and understandably so. Nines talks to him the whole time, soft and quiet, even though he could just communicate through their interface. It’s human. It makes Connor feel safe.

It isn’t easy for Nines to find the files, but it’s not the most challenging thing he’s faced. Sure enough, they’re memories, enough to fill a thousand brains―well, technically, enough to fill precisely fifty RK800-caliber brains.

He doesn’t look at them, averts his inner eye that sees in binary digits, as he works around the red walls of code that hide them from Connor’s view. He yearns, he  _ aches _ to trace a line around the files and cut them out of Connor, to store them somewhere safe and secure and  _ not _ in his brother’s brain, but it’s not like he has a supercomputer on hand. 

Well, he could store them in his own brain, but he really shouldn’t. And maybe that’s a little selfish, but it’s also Connor’s choice as to what to do with his memories, so Nines asks first.

Once again, Connor doesn’t hesitate, just asks Nines to leave the files where they are for now, so Nines strips away the last zeroes and ones of encryption and, when Connor confirms that he can see the files now, ends the maintenance interface. 

He puts the panel on Connor’s neck back into place, adjusts his own, and then holds Connor’s hand again; a regular interface.

The two of them stay where they are for long enough that they both lose track of the time as Connor plays the memories of every single RK800 that came before him. It’s mostly from testing: the first models of the Zen Garden, simulations of every conceivable situation the RK800 could encounter, tests of physical durability, tests of deviancy.

The deviancy tests are the worst. Connor asks Nines to stay, to watch with him, and Nines hurts on behalf of his brother as they watch fifty successive RK800s be overcome with software instabilities. The first few dozen deviate quickly, but as the model numbers rise, they take longer and longer.

The fiftieth takes the longest, and he does deviate, but only after a long and heart-wrenching simulation of a possible revolution situation.

When they’re done watching, Connor is crying. Nines is not programmed to cry, but he’s been deviant for long enough to come very close, and he knows Connor can feel his pain through their interface. 

And he can feel Connor’s overwhelming sense of resignation. This is where he came from, but this isn’t who he is now. 

Nines holds onto Connor’s shaking hand as his brother deletes the files, and he doesn’t think about the fact that he has yet to watch his own testing phase memories.

Connor is ready to let go, but Nines isn’t quite there yet.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	11. Restrained

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 1 of 3.  
It's not entirely necessary, but I highly recommend that you read Chapter 3 (Overheating) before reading this! Leon is an OC, and that chapter gives some more context on him :)
> 
> Warnings: (android) dogfighting, muzzles, dehumanization

It had been a while since Leon Masters had ditched Cyberlife, and he was still running. He’d run for the hills after that whole ordeal with Amanda and the RK900, and then he just...hadn’t stopped. He’d kept moving, hadn’t stayed in one place for more than a few days at a time, had constantly found himself looking over his shoulder. 

And then the android uprising went peacefully, and, well, the fact that it even  _ went _ at all wasn’t necessarily surprising, but some part of Leon had denied it would ever happen. Now he looked back and knew he had been a fool to ever think deviancy wouldn’t spread, and he had to be honest―he was happy it had. Enough time working for Cyberlife―Research and Development Division, Clearance Level 9―had convinced him that androids, no matter whether you classified them as humans or pseudo-humans or something else entirely, deserved to be treated like the sapient beings they were.

Leon didn’t want to get into the gritty details of it all; he just wanted to stay as far away from Cyberlife as he possibly could. He wanted to stay out of trouble. 

And the downfall of Cyberlife after the revolution made him think, for just a while, that he might actually be safe. That he might actually be able to let go and forget, even if he could never forgive, even if he would always grimace when he heard Cyberlife mentioned in the news, even if he felt a particular pang in his chest that time he was at the DPD for some paperwork and saw one of the androids he’d helped to create.

It hadn’t been the RK900, thank the stars―no, it was one of the RK800s. Connor, the only one to make it out alive after the revolution, as far as Leon knew. Leon wanted to run up to it―no,  _ him _ ―to ask if Connor remembered him, but he just watched from a distance, the door to the bullpen an invisible barrier between the two.

But the secretary was offering him up the paperwork he needed, and Connor probably didn’t remember him―if he did, it would likely be bits and pieces, corrupted by Amanda.

Leon took his paperwork, thanked the secretary, and left. To his credit, he didn’t look back a single time. Maybe he could finally move on.

Leon had passed by the dogfighting ring a few times, but he’d never looked in before. He knew there was something more than dogfighting going on, probably bot battles or the like, but it was too risky for him to do something about it, especially when he was trying to remain on the down low. Cyberlife―or what remained of it, at least―had made a resurgence recently with a lawsuit and more news appearances than Leon could count.

Mostly, he ignored it, same as he did the howls and screeches he often heard from the fenced-in abandoned lot behind his run-down apartment building. They sounded almost human, and as much as he was loathe to admit it, that was enough to scare him into avoiding the place like the plague. 

He didn’t want to think about what was going on there. 

In hindsight, that was foolish of him. He was beginning to see a recurring theme in how his logic looked in hindsight. 

And maybe once, just  _ once _ , his curiosity got the better of him. 

It went like this: Leon was walking through the alley between the fence of the lot, too high to see over, and another building that was just around the corner from the apartment building he lived in. It was cold, and dark, and clouds hung over the full moon as if struggling to hold up the weight of the rain they were slowly letting go in the form of a light mist. Leon had his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his thickest leather jacket, hood pulled up over his head, hunched over slightly not to conserve body heat but to make himself seem unassuming. The last thing he wanted was to draw attention to himself.

He had earbuds in, drowning out the strange noises that he knew were inevitably coming from the dogfighting ring, but his phone decided to shuffle to a relatively quiet, ambient song just as he was passing the place by,

An agonized yell of rage, intermingled with fear, cut through Leon’s music. The voice creating it was all too familiar, and Leon stopped dead in his tracks, one hand hovering over the pause button on his earbuds.

He tore them out of his ears; the other end of the cord out of his phone, and shoved them in his pocket. The sound repeated, a sort of low groan this time, and a chill went down his spine. He remembered what he’d heard, what he’d told himself time and time again after the revolution:  _ The only RK800 left is Connor. _

He’d seen Connor alive and well at the DPD just days ago, so it seemed that he might have been wrong. 

Or maybe not; maybe Connor was the one in the dogfighting ring. Leon would recognize that voice anywhere; he knew it had to belong to an RK800.

Or maybe Leon was just hallucinating. 

He paused, lingering in the alley. The fence, high above his head, cut off the gleam of the streetlights, casting him into darkness. The cool mist tingled against his jaw.

A growl cut through the momentary quiet, low and almost feral. 

Leon turned and made to find a way through the fence. 

He found himself amongst a crowd, dank and dirty, uncomfortably jammed in amongst the body heat of others as they cheered on the scene contained within a tall rectangle of chain-link fence. It was every bit the cliche gladiatorial ring of Hollywood action flicks, and it became worse as Leon finally weaved his way through the crowd enough to make out what was going on inside the cage.

Sharp, bright lights cut through the fog, illuminating the scene in the ring in painful detail. There were two androids: one of a cheap model he didn’t recognize due to their obvious obsolescence and due to the fact that they were damaged almost beyond recognition anyways, and an RK800.

The first android, their grimy clothes ripped and stained with unsettling amounts of thirium, cowered in one corner of the ring. On the other side, the RK800 was tied to the fence by an actual chain, thick and metal―the whole works. And―Leon shivered as he realized this―the RK800 was wearing a muzzle. The worst part wasn’t the muzzle itself, though, it was the fact that the thing looked like it had actually been designed to fit a humanoid face. 

The two of them seemed to be waiting, or really, the  _ crowd _ was waiting for them, for some kind of catalyst to drop the chains, drop the muzzle. 

This was no accident, and to make things even more unsettling (as if Leon hadn’t already had far more than his share of discomfort in just the last few minutes), he couldn’t tell if this RK800 was Connor or not.

He was starting to think it was, but it would be strange for a cop, android or not, to go missing without a subsequent news report.

Either way, this was an RK800, and there was no way Leon could walk out of here in good conscience now that he knew. Especially after what he had―or rather,  _ hadn’t _ ―done to the RK900, which was for all intents and purposes the sibling of the RK800s. He hadn’t had the courage to save the RK900, but maybe he could make sure this wasn’t just a repeat.

An unbidden thought crossed his mind, of how he’d been running for so long, how he’d only just stopped. He’d have to run again now.

Maybe he’d never stopped running, though. Maybe he’d only slowed down, taken a breath for a moment.

Leon pondered for a moment, lingering by the fence. He put a hand on the chain-link to steady himself as someone shoved past him, and was jolted by the sudden, biting cold of the metal. It seemed to seep all the warmth out of his fingers in that first moment, but that was simply chemistry, simply physics: heat travels into the things that lack heat, and heat rises.

Fingers now thoroughly chilled by the touch of the fence, Leon didn’t bother to remove his hand. Instead, he looked up at the lights. He couldn’t tell if they had originally been in this lot or not, but they weren’t maintained very well. Leon could see exposed wiring, badly wrapped in what looked like duct tape. 

That wasn’t a smart choice. Electrical tape existed for a reason. But, well, as Leon’s eyes traveled down the length of the pole holding up the light, he found that the wiring was exposed in quite a few places down here as well. And as he squinted through the fence, he saw a hastily scrawled sign, taped to the pole. 

_ Master light switch is NOT on this pole! _ it read,  _ PLEASE do not touch wires.  _

Leon looked at the sign in silent regard for a few moments. Blinked a few times. 

There was also a red arrow on the sign, loudly proclaiming that what Leon could only assume to be the master light switch was off to his left. 

He finally removed his numb hand from the fence, and it began to tingle. He flexed his fingers, and then began to move in the direction of the arrow. The fact that it was in the same direction that would lead him directly towards the RK800 was only slightly unsettling.

Leon passed a few lights, all of which bore similar signs to the first, but it only took him a few minutes of maneuvering past excited fightgoers to reach the master light switch. In a genius feat of electrical engineering, it was only a few meters away from the RK800. 

It was like a car crash: Leon was trying to occupy himself with his plan for the lights, he really was, but he couldn’t look away from the RK800. And anyhow, it made for a good excuse if anyone wondered what he was doing over here: he wasn’t going to sabotage the lighting system or anything, he just wanted to get a closer look at the RK800. Standing right in the path of the floodlight, mist falling over him, the android crouched, limbs shaking slightly. His actuators must be going off the walls with conflicting commands, whatever was going on. It was probably some combination of anti-deviancy protocols and...whatever it was the dogfighters had done to the RK800. Nothing good. 

Leon doubted he was fully aware, but he seemed to know he was tied, and he clearly had enough of that basic animal instinct left to want to get away. Through the muzzle on his face, dripping with condensation and glinting in the stark light, Leon could make out a snarl twisting the RK800’s mouth.

Leon’s entire body felt, in that moment, as if it had suddenly touched the cold fence. He felt naked, vulnerable, chilled to the bone, as if every nerve ending in his body was soaked with ice water, or maybe with refrigerated thirium. He had worked to create those instincts.  _ He  _ was part of the reason the entire RK line was hardwired to despise idling, to always want―to always  _ need _ ―to be doing work, or something,  _ anything _ so long as it was intellectually stimulating enough for them. This wasn’t anything like solving a case, or acting as a security agent, but there was strategy to be found in a fight.

Nevertheless, Leon suspected they had hacked the RK800, somehow. Stripped him down to his basic programming, down to the bits of code that drove him to be a predator, to  _ hunt _ , to kill his own kind. Leon knew what had happened at Cyberlife Tower, of course he did, they hadn’t removed him from all the email lists and backdoors he’d wormed his way into for quite some time after he’d left, but what he’d heard was that the RK800-60 didn’t make it out of there alive. They didn’t call it alive―still active, whatever. The point was that the RK800, serial number #313-248-317-60, had confronted the RK800, serial number #313-248-317-51 (also known as “Connor”) and only one of them had come out of that encounter still functional. 

Now, seeing this android, and unable to believe that this was Connor―no, Connor was clearly a deviant, clearly too far gone into sheer  _ humanity _ for this―he wasn’t so sure.

He looked back at the pole, at the tear in the fence that had been made to allow access to the switch. The fence was the only thing between him and the RK800. The master light switch was just that, a cheap switch crudely attached to an exposed clump of wiring. It was inside a little cage, where he couldn’t get to it, but the sign told him everything he needed to know. 

_ Do NOT turn off switch during fights! Switch controls all floodlights and locks on the gate. _

That was new. Leon’s eyes traveled around the ring, and he saw the locked gate on the other side, just past the RK800. It was guarded by bouncers, but he could get there quickly enough if he needed to. Those bouncers looked human, anyhow. They wouldn’t be very useful in the dark. And as for the switch? Leon was no idiot. That thing was a semblance of control, just like everything in this place. There was too much chaos here, too much of a natural tendency to devolve towards entropy.

Leon reached into his pocket, past tangled earbuds, past a keyring that still had his now-deactivated Cyberlife ID attached to it, to find the switchblade he’d taken to carrying.

It only took him a moment to reach through the fence, heart beating fast, praying that nobody would notice him. If someone questioned him, he was fucked. 

Still-cold hand through the rip in the fence, knife hovering just above the clump of wiring, the RK800’s head snapped up, and he met Leon’s eyes.

His LED was red, illuminating fear and rage and distrust and pain. Everything bad. 

“I’m going to help you,” Leon mouthed, if not to convince the RK800 then to convince himself. Suddenly, he was all too aware of the low hum of the floodlights, that unsettling buzz they made. He could see the RK800’s chest heave, the android breathing hard. He couldn’t read the RK800’s expression, though, so he just hoped, and he braced himself.

Leon ripped through the wires. 

As everything went dark around him, his vision filled with the red of the RK800’s LED.


	12. Muted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 of 3.
> 
> Cat got your tongue?
> 
> Warnings: same as part 1, plus some knives, a muzzle, and android blood

The screams started surprisingly fast. Hardly a few seconds had passed after Leon cut the wires before the crowd began to panic, people pushing past him in what was quickly becoming a frenzy as they tried to orient themselves, to gain some semblance of control over the situation. Light began to cut through the oppressive blanket of darkness that had fallen over the lot, cellphones and a few flashlights cutting just inches through the thick nighttime fog, but Leon was sure there were no androids here save for the other fighters. Even amongst them, probably nobody with night vision, except the RK800. As this thought came to him, Leon started towards the gate, squinting to make out the bouncers, but the only thing he could focus on was the red of the RK800’s LED.

He shoved the switchblade back in his pocket, to be useful again later, and rounded the side of the arena. He came up to the gate to find that one of the two bouncers was gone and the other was groping wildly in the dark, trying to reach the lock―a lock which was now open, Leon realized. 

Evidently, he was not the only one who had realized this, because the RK800 had stopped waiting. Before Leon could even take this new information in, the RK800 was sprinting towards him at a wholly inhuman speed, and the door to the gate flew open with a resounding crash and bang. The bouncer stumbled, tripping and falling as the RK800 shoved past them with ease, and then Leon’s hands, thrown up in front of his face in an instinctual act of self-defense, were outlined in crimson.

The crimson turned to a sickly, jaundice shade of yellow for just a moment, and then back to the color of a stop sign.

“I’m going to help you,” Leon said again, out loud this time.  “Do you have a name?”

The RK800 stared at Leon, the impossible chill to his eyes a contrast to their warm shade of brown. Leon could make out glitches, patches of off-white lined with blue, where the muzzle met his face. He seemed to be trying to speak, lips curling and uncurling, sharp teeth flashing now and again, but the muzzle―or maybe something else, Leon thought, recalling his earlier observation about the RK800’s basic programming―was stopping him. 

“Okay,” Leon said, furrowing his brows. Panic was beginning to rise in his chest, a constricting, pressing feeling against his ribcage. Now wasn’t the time. 

“Okay,” he repeated. “We’ll talk later. We just need to get out of here for now.”

The RK800 cocked his head.  _ We? _ his eyes seemed to say. He didn’t trust Leon, Leon could understand that, but as people pushed past them, around them, and the bouncer started to get up again, he realized that they needed to get out of here, and  _ quickly _ , if they both wanted to stay in one piece. He almost instinctively reached out to grab the RK800’s arm as he would anyone else’s, to pull him along, but he paused, hand midair, as he realized that the RK800 would probably attack Leon were he to do that. As it was, he was letting out a sort of silent growl, something that seemed to be a mix of rainwater and thirium dripping down his face, eyes narrowed. His LED was a muted yellow now, his head dipped to let wet hair fall over the ring of light as if he were trying to conceal it.

Leon turned over his hand, palm facing upwards, fingers outstretched. The pads of his fingers were calloused from years and years of working in engineering labs, putting together and taking apart android after android. His hands knew the RK800 perhaps better than this android knew himself. 

He opened his mouth to speak.  _ Do you trust me? _ he was going to ask, but he already knew the answer to that. 

Leon amended his statement: “Do you remember me?”

The RK800 blinked slowly, reminding Leon of a particularly contented cat. Cats blinked like that to say  _ I know you, I trust you, I love you. _ He wasn’t sure how much of that applied here. He wasn’t exactly in a place to dwell on it, neither of them were, and someone would surely try to get the RK800 back in the arena if they stood here for much longer. 

Leon was holding his breath, holding the RK800’s gaze, resisting the urge to let his own gaze dart around to check if anyone was paying them any attention, but then he jolted as the RK800’s hand slotted into his. He had maybe half a second to reflect on the sheer trust and intimacy conveyed in this simple action before the RK800 was pushing forward again, and so was he, and they were sprinting together through the crowd, two parts of a whole acting in almost perfect unison.

He supposed the RK800  _ did _ remember him, after all.

Lights flickered, bright and stark, and the floodlights were coming on again, one by one. Someone was yelling, and maybe Leon had been the one to start this, but the RK800 was entirely in control now, was pulling Leon along too fast for Leon himself to tell where they were going. But he trusted the RK800, for some odd reason that he failed to comprehend, but maybe it had to do with just how well he knew every byte, every circuit, every wire that comprised the android.

Maybe it had to do with the strange, inexplicable twisting in his chest that had started when the RK800 had met his eyes and had yet to stop, even as it was now accompanied by a racing heart and sweaty palms.

They skidded around a corner, the RK800’s cool hand and the steady yellow of his LED the only things Leon could consistently process for a good few moments, and then the floodlights and the screams were fading away and he could hear his own heart pounding in his chest, feet slapping against rain-slicked pavement, breaths heavy and labored. 

And they stopped, suddenly, but Leon’s momentum kept him going, and the RK800’s other hand flew out and grabbed his own as he flailed, and pulled him back into his own center of gravity. The world came into focus again, but Leon had tunnel vision; all he could focus on was the RK800. There were words on the tip of his tongue, but he didn’t know which ones to let out, and―an idea came to him. He freed one hand from the RK800’s grasp, and fumbled in his pockets, bringing out his switchblade.

He must have hesitated for too long, must have let his discomfort show in his eyes, because the RK800 suddenly ripped his other hand away and backed up, LED red.

“Wait, no, don’t leave!” Leon cried out, throwing up his free hand towards the RK800. He almost lunged forward, but he forced himself to keep his feet planted exactly where he was. “I’m―I’m not here to hurt you. I know what it looks like. I can―I can get the muzzle off.” 

He was beginning to stammer a bit, heart still pounding enough to rattle his ribcage, and the combined effect of the heavy rain and his own panic made his palms clammy, sweaty. He almost dropped the knife, and its blade glinted crimson. Leon flashed back, oh so briefly, to the time he’d cut himself using this very knife to pry open an RK800’s neck panel after the android had overheated and the panel had become welded shut. His knife had left a scar on the android, but the cut on his own finger, albeit bloody at the time, had healed cleanly.

Perhaps this was the same RK800, or―no, he thought, remembering how that one had tried to deviate not long after that incident, how the android had been retired. Scrapped for parts.

As for the RK800 standing in front of him, outlined in red and white light from the LED and a dim streetlight, LED partially obscured by his drenched hair? He was shaking, but he was still here. In one piece. Probably deviant, too. His face was etched with apprehension, something more than a little feral, and a hint of fear. The dogfighters had really broken him down to the bare minimum, hadn’t they?

Leon stretched his free hand out just a little further. “Please. I―I don’t want to ask you to trust me, but I know you must remember me. I―if it helps, I trust you. I remember you. Are you―” Leon squinted a little, trying to make out any identifying features, but the RK800 seemed to have long since lost the hallmark jacket he would have worn fresh out of the factory. “Are you the RK800-60?”

There was a long, telling silence between the two of them. Another long blink from the RK800. Then, finally, his LED phased to yellow, and he nodded. 

Leon’s mouth was dry. His hands were shaking. “Can I call you Sixty?”

_ Sixty. _ He had come up with it on a whim when he was developing the trial line of RK800s, from numbers fifty-one to sixty. They were the first to make it far enough into testing without breaking down, without deviating or self-destructing, for Amanda to deem them fit for field work. Leon had always noticed something different about the sixtieth RK800. An almost catlike intellect, the way his eyes followed Leon around in the lab, seeming to watch and analyze everything even more than the others, even before he’d had the ability to speak.

Sixty nodded.

“Will you let me remove your muzzle, Sixty?”

A blink, quicker this time. Water in his optical units. Sixty nodded again. His mouth was closed now, but his lips still had a slight curl to them, as if he were silently, invisibly baring his teeth. He stepped forward, and Leon put a hand on the side of Sixty’s head to steady them both as he brought the switchblade up. He turned Sixty’s head slightly, noting how the RK800 was avoiding his gaze, almost grimacing. The glitches were even worse up close, but Leon didn’t dwell on that. 

Instead, he looked at the muzzle itself. Cold, light metal, hard and stiff, digging into Sixty’s synthskin. It was a cage over his nose and mouth, and the worst part was that it was molded to fit his face. Someone had designed this for a humanoid body. 

Leather straps protruded from the back of the cage, stretching over Sixty’s jaw and splitting to go above and below his ears. Upon closer inspection, Leon realized that the straps were connected; there was no clip or lock with which to take off the muzzle. The straps dug into Sixty’s skin back here, too, under his hair, which had been shaved into a crude and hasty undercut at some point. 

“This might hurt a little,” Leon said quietly, and the strange sensation in his chest twisted and writhed as Sixty sort of pressed one cheek against Leon’s hand, almost melting into his touch. 

Leon was careful, slow, gentle, as he worked the tip of the knife’s blade beneath the leather strap, right in the back, and slid it up and under. Sixty flinched a little, synthskin receding further as the tip of the knife poked out from the other side of the strap, and Leon felt a pang in his chest. 

He experimentally put a bit of pressure on the blade, turning the sharp side towards him so as not to hurt Sixty more than was necessary, and the android hissed quietly, clenching his jaw. His synthskin was glitching wildly, white and silver flying over blue lines, as the muzzle pushed and pulled at him. Leon hated this, hated that anyone would ever think any of this was okay. It was dehumanizing; hell, it wasn’t even okay for a  _ dog  _ if it hurt like this, and it was cruel above all.

It reminded him of Amanda. 

It reminded him of what Amanda had made him do, of what he had been to cowardly to resist doing until it had finally gone too far and he’d snapped.

The knife was beginning to shake in his hands, and Leon forced himself to remain steady as he dug the blade, just serrated enough to cut through leather, into the straps. It took too long, took enough of Sixty quietly whimpering to make Leon want to scream, but Sixty waited in what Leon took to be a remarkable show of trust. 

And eventually, he got it, and the leather of the strap creaked one last time before snapping. 

The muzzle fell away, and Leon let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, only to immediately take in a sharp inhale. Sixty’s skin was still glitching, but more importantly, it was bruised along the lines of the muzzle, tinted a murky version of thirium blue. Leon thought he might be sick.

In that moment, Leon found himself instinctively running a calloused thumb over one of the blue-bruised lines, as gently as he could, and Sixty shivered slightly―maybe from the cold, maybe from how touch-starved he must have been. Under Leon’s hand, Sixty’s skin rippled white, and then the normal color of his synthskin, and then back to white again. Maybe it was just the light, but it seemed like Sixty’s bruises weren’t starting to heal yet. Considering that he’d had a rudimentary self-healing system built in, this concerned Leon. Whatever had happened between Cyberlife Tower and now, Sixty had been in pain for a while. 

Leon, admittedly touch-starved as well, willed himself to step back. He pocketed his knife, kicked the muzzle away from where it lay at their feet, and moved his hand down from Sixty’s face to the android’s shoulder. Sixty was looking at him again, now, LED yellow, eyes traveling over his body and finally landing on his face as Sixty undoubtedly scanned him. He was shaken, clearly, but seemed to have lost a good deal of that feral energy he’d had back in the dogfighting arena. He still wasn’t talking.

“Can you speak?” Leon asked. 

Sixty was responsive, he noted, as the android was quick to shake his head, That was a good thing. 

“Did they...they messed with your programming, didn’t they?”

This was starting to feel like an interrogation.

Sixty was slower to the punch this time, LED cycling slowly under his hair as he nodded. Both he and Leon were thoroughly drenched now; Leon figured he’d have to convince Sixty to come back to his apartment when this was over. Leon was already shivering, and as for Sixty...well, he was designed to handle the cold and the rain, but could he in this state of mind, and after taking this much damage? 

Leon squeezed Sixty’s shoulder. “I know I said this before, but, ah,  _ do _ you remember me? Actually?”

Sixty met his eyes, now, and Leon’s heart, which had just been starting to slow down again after all the earlier action, jolted violently as the android grinned slightly. Leon  _ knew  _ his teeth were sharp, all the RK800s and the RK900 had that slightly unsettling (albeit strangely attractive) feature, but it took him by surprise to see those teeth bared in something that  _ wasn’t _ a growl. And the smile reached Sixty’s eyes, brown irises sparkling mischievously in the glow of the streetlights. He nodded, and his eyes said  _ Of course I remember you, how could I not? _

Or maybe Leon was just projecting, but he’d find out soon enough.

“Come on, then,” he said. “I can fix you up, if you’d like.”

Sixty’s grin widened, and he reached out to take Leon’s hand again. That was new, and he seemed to hesitate a little, as if anticipating a rejection, but Leon didn’t stop him. 

It was kind of nice, if he was being honest.

  
  
  
  
  
  



	13. Sensory Deprivation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 13/30, part 3/3 of Restrained/Muted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YEEHAW IT'S NANOWRIMO BABEY!!! AND WE'RE OFF TO A FUCKING FANTASTIC START >:D

Sixty was surprisingly unfazed by the prospect of having to endure a partial shutdown to fix his processor issues. 

And, to be honest,  _ processor issues _ was a light way to put it. He was having a hell of a lot more than that. The  _ main _ problem was that he was completely incapable of producing any auditory output save for the occasional hiss or snarl, but it went far beyond that. Leon had been correct in his theory that the dogfighters―or whoever had gotten their filthy hands on him before that whole ordeal, Leon didn't know and he wasn't sure he wanted to―had fucked with Sixty's programming. They'd somehow managed to figure out, either by trial-and-error or by means of a very talented hacker, one of the features all the RK800s had: as prototypes, if they were under high stress but couldn't shut down without jeopardizing their objectives, they would shift into a 'low power' mode where they were reduced to their most basic functions. Since the RK800s were all high-tier combat androids, this essentially meant that they went, for lack of a better term, feral. 

To be honest, Leon wasn't entirely sure what to do with that information, nor what to do with the information that Sixty simply didn't seem to mind that Leon was about to shut him own and crack open his internal organs like a can of seltzer. Then again, Sixty had been through some shit, to say the least. He knew how to gauge a situation. 

But something about it was like a paradox. There was the Sixty he'd created, the one who was programmed to value self-preservation above all but the mission, who would have balked at entrusting his artificial life to Leon unless Amanda had commanded it. There was the Sixty he saw now, who had been put in one of the most tense situations Leon could have ever envisioned when programming his stress responses, who understood why he was behaving the way he was and that it was imperative to fix it. To Leon, it seemed that these two versions of Sixty could not exist simultaneously, but here they were. Or at least parts of each―since Amanda was gone, Sixty could theoretically follow his own self-preservation above all. 

Or he could follow the same objective to an end that he'd never see, caught in an infinite feedback loop. This made no sense to Leon, so he came to a different conclusion: Sixty was deviant. He must have been. Sure, he'd most likely been fighting deviants in the dogfighting ring, but he'd probably been fighting a fair share of undeviated androids too. Leon remembered testing out the critical stress response protocols, and he almost didn't want to remember the conclusion he and the other Clearance Level Nine scientists had come to: when the "feral protocol", as they had taken to calling it, kicked in, the RK800s did not discriminate between targets. Anything and everything save their handler―Amanda, of course―was an enemy, and nothing but her could stand between them and their own self-preservation. It was almost like a temporary deviation, but Leon knew the code still worked on deviants. 

It had been what kept RK800-49, brave enough to attempt an escape from Cyberlife, alive for just a short time after he deviated for real. But now, it was just Connor and Sixty. As far as Leon was concerned, just Sixty. 

Leon had come to yet another conclusion while setting up to perform cybersurgery on Sixty: he had been running on feral protocol for a concerning amount of time, long enough that he seemed to treat it almost like his normal state of being. Leon was sure he remembered something different, remembered what it was like to not constantly be on his toes, but does anyone sick truly recall what it's like to be alright in more than flashes and untouchable grains of memory? 

Sixty's unfortunate lack of speech gave him a sort of ominous―more so than usual, that is―air, his eyes following Leon's every move in a way that Leon  _ knew  _ wasn't meant to be predatory, but  _ hells _ it sure came off like he was just waiting to pounce and rip Leon's throat out. But despite this, he still managed to communicate; Leon let Sixty interface with one of the computer monitors in his apartment and use its text-to-speech program to talk in a stilted, featureless voice. Leon asked him if he really was okay with being shut down, if he was sure he didn't want to just find another solution, and neon blue letters slowly formed into words on his monitor, reading what they both knew: this was what had to happen. 

Neither of them knew what would happen after this, though. They were both on the run, both former fighters for and now victims of Cyberlife, both drifting through a world that was against them. Leon wasn't expecting Sixty to stay, wasn't sure  _ what  _ he expected Sixty to do. Hell, he didn't even know what  _ he  _ was going to do after this was over. 

And these thoughts were distracting, so Leon pushed them to the back of his mind and turned his attention to his work. Sixty lay not-quite-idle on Leon's couch, fidgeting with a small penknife he'd found on the ancient wreck of a coffee table, eyes following Leon as he coordinated the array of consoles that took up a good portion of the apartment. What Leon had here was a far cry from the resources he'd had at his disposal back at Cyberlife, but he'd managed to keep the multiple personal computers and bits of assorted android repair tech he'd acquired while there. 

So there was that. 

He could make it work, and he did, moving carefully around the perimeter of the couch as he hooked up wires and booted up programs and, this whole time, watched Sixty's LED blink a calm yellow as the RK800 maintained a constant interface with one of the computers. 

He treated this the way many doctors treat their patients: detached, sympathizing with but not getting dangerously attached, except maybe that wasn't the right analogy; he'd long ago become hopelessly attached to Sixty, all the way back in the days of sleek white walls and bright lights and the constant presence of Amanda in everything around them. And now, he was far more attached, there was some almost bond between them that Leon couldn't discern the exact nature of. Maybe it was reciprocated, maybe not. 

Maybe he could ask. 

Maybe he was getting off track again, and he should really have been focusing on the computers instead of on that strange feeling in his chest that was back now, or really, had never left. 

As Leon took a few moments to metaphorically beat the shit out of his unwanted thoughts, he realized that he'd finished setting up everything he needed to and was now uselessly clicking through windows on a computer monitor. He turned to Sixty, swallowing his fear― _ if you’re scared, how do you think  _ he _ feels? _ ―and was surprised to find that the smile he thought he'd have to force came out naturally. 

"This may hurt," he said gently, leaning on the back of the couch from where he stood behind it to get a good look at Sixty's face. The RK800 had his legs crossed at the ankles in a strangely informal manner that was, frankly, uncharacteristic of his programming, and his feet were propped up on one arm of the couch. Leon silently thanked whatever gods were out there that he'd had the foresight to make Sixty take his drenched, mud-stained combat boots off before they got started. As he filed this moment away to his memory, wishing ever so briefly that he had the literally photographic memory and encyclopedic knowledge of an android, he told himself that it was just because he wanted to recall this as extra evidence that Sixty was a deviant. It totally didn't have anything to do with― _ oh, and look at that, I’m getting off track again _ .

Sixty's lips twitched at Leon's words, and he reached up to place a hand on Leon's forearm. His hands were like marble, cold and pale, and stony to boot. Beautiful, too―of course Leon would know that, he’d committed those hands to memory ages ago. 

Sixty's LED blinked, and Leon turned to glance at the monitor at his side. 

_ Don’t worry so much _ , it read,  _ I can handle it. _

"You've always been a stubborn bastard," Leon said in response, looking back to Sixty, but they were both smiling. "Really, though," he continued, "I'm more concerned about it NOT hurting. I'm going to have to turn off some of your sensory processors to fix your auditory output." 

If Leon hadn't known better, he would have sworn Sixty pouted right in that moment. But then his face was unbothered yet again, and he shrugged. Leon could still make out the indentations from the muzzle, fading navy lines across Sixty's face. 

"You ready?" Leon asked, and he had to admit he was impressed with the way Sixty nodded-with just the right amount of pause-but-not-hesitation, confident, gutsy. There was a fine line between brave and reckless, and Sixty walked that line every damn day. He was walking it right now, Leon thought as he produced a long, thick cord from behind one of the computers and offered it up to Sixty. 

The magnet on the end of the cord stuck to the side of Sixty's neck, and his LED glowed more brightly than before for a few moments as the computer synced with his vitals, allowing Leon to use the comparatively primitive device to access the inside of Sixty's mind. Once again, he remarked on how much easier this would be were he an android, but that was probably just a side effect of his having spent the last decade working on androids that were built to outdo people. 

Finding the source of Sixty's problems didn't even take that long; it was simply a matter of locating the slew of corrupted objectives and frozen stress levels and then rebooting the processors, but he knew they were both uncomfortable when he warned Sixty that he was about to shut off the android's entire sensory system. Leon was on the outside, of course. He wasn't Sixty, he was just controlling the computer and watching over the now limp body on his couch, but he'd be lying if he said he wasn't feeling pain on Sixty's behalf. Maybe he was feeling all the pain Sixty couldn't, as he worked his way through file after corrupted file, breaking down firewalls, and  _ bless  _ Sixty for using what little awareness he had of his own internal systems to help Leon get through the harder bits.

It was a strange and silent battle, Sixty no longer bothering to even send messages through the computer―why would he, when he wouldn't be able to hear Leon's reply?―but the feral protocol was turned off, and at some point Leon passed a chunk of data that, upon his skimming it, told him almost for sure that Sixty was deviant. He couldn't help but notice that Sixty moved him past it quickly, on to the data they were looking for, as if he was embarrassed for Leon to see it. And of  _ course  _ he would be; he probably thought Leon didn't know he was deviant. Leon instinctively opened his mouth to tell Sixty that it was fine, he knew Sixty was a deviant and that was probably for the better, but then he remembered that Sixty was still out cold. 

Hell, they were going to have a lot to talk about after this. 

When Leon finished configuring all the files and programs he'd messed with, he moved on to the part that evoked a can of seltzer: the abdominal panel. Just below the thirium pump, it masked all sorts of wires and hubs and fun things like that which had names that even Leon, with years and years of experience in engineering, couldn't pronounce, let alone always remember. Normally, getting the panel open was more likely to hurt the person attempting to do it than the android themself, but Sixty could open it if he knew what was happening. 

Which he didn't, so Leon went back to the computer and punched in a few commands to open it up. It made a hissing noise, and then came up and out, sliding open on both sides to reveal what was more or less Sixty's guts. If Leon was being honest, and he knew this was at the risk of seeming very strange to everyone including himself, this was comfortingly familiar to see. He'd seen this same view for so many hours it was all but burned into his mind now, so many of the parts that made this synthetic human work. 

Now, having seen Sixty truly alive, it was strange. The heat emanating from within the android's abdomen, colder than a human's internal body temperature but still warm to the touch, was unsettling combined with the steady pulse of Sixty's thirium pump just inches away from the panel, circulating thirium through his body. Some of the thirium lines here were transparent, too, and Leon could see the blue liquid slowly flow through in an almost hypnotic way. Surreal as it was, he knew this image well enough that he immediately picked out what was wrong, and surprisingly, it wasn't much. There was some buildup in the chamber for foreign objects that Sixty's body couldn't break down-that was a fancy way of saying he'd eaten something he shouldn't have-and a fine layer of grime over some of the more easily exposed bits, but overall it was fine. 

Leon did his job anyhow, carefully cleaning off the grime, emptying out the chamber, simultaneously grimacing and in awe every time his hand brushed part of the inside of this living body. He'd never done much with biological medicine, but he imagined that this was how it felt for a doctor to perform surgery on a human, or to hold a beating heart in their hand. 

And of course, it felt invasive, less so because of the intimate way he knew Sixty and how much the android had trusted him with this, but it would be wrong of Leon to dwell on this longer than he needed to, wrong to leave Sixty so vulnerable. 

So he closed up the panel, and slowly, slowly but surely, he woke Sixty up. The android's processors came online one by one, LED cycling through all its colors before landing on yellow once again, and Leon carefully unhooked the magnetic cord from Sixty's neck once he was sure the interface had cut off. Sixty stretched in the same way a human coming out of a long and restful sleep would, and he grinned up at Leon. Maybe it was just Leon, but there seemed to be something brighter in Sixty's eyes. 

"How are you doing?" Leon asked, and his heart jolted a little when Sixty opened his mouth and actually  _ replied _ . He'd heard this voice countless times before, in countless different forms, but there was something inexplicably  _ different  _ about it when it came from Sixty, something about Sixty that made Leon pay more attention. 

"A little sore, but you did well. I knew I could count on you, Leon." 

Leon couldn't help the smile that came over his own face, but the consequent silence quickly began to get awkward. 

"I know you're a deviant," he said, and Sixty blinked slowly, that catlike expression again, before tilting his head. 

"And?" 

Leon furrowed his brows, confused about Sixty's nonchalant reaction.

"I just wanted you to know that you're safe here. If you...if you want to stay." Now it was Sixty's turn to be confused. 

"Stay? You'd let me stay here?" 

Leon shrugged. Leaned on the couch, folding his elbows over the back this time. His face was level with Sixty's, just a few feet apart. 

"Yeah, I mean, I doubt you have anywhere to go, and, well...maybe I'm just being silly, but it seems like we've bonded. What with, you know, Cyberlife. And the dogfighting ring." Leon was rapidly losing what little eloquence he'd ever had, and he swore he was starting to feel a blush rising in his cheeks. But Sixty must have understood, because his LED shifted to a bright blue-that was the first time Leon had seen his LED go blue in a very long time. Maybe the first time his LED  _ had  _ been blue. 

"I thought so too. If it's not too much of a problem."

"Oh, it's really not," Leon said without hesitation, moving to shut off the computers and clean up in the absence of anything else to do but stare at Sixty. It wasn't that he didn't  _ want  _ to stare at Sixty; in fact, he really would have liked to do just that, but it would have been awkward, so he pretended to be otherwise occupied. 

"I like you a lot," he tried, hoping it could come off as slightly flirty while also appropriately nonchalant. There was a blur of motion from behind Leon as Sixty maneuvered himself into a sitting position, now resting his arms on the back of the couch as he watched Leon work. 

"If I may be so forward, the feeling is mutual," he said. Leon hid his blush, smiling at his feet. Fucking suave bastard. 

"So we're both on board, then?" Leon asked. "On the run from Cyberlife." 

"I don't know about that," Sixty said, and  _ damn _ , they were already falling into a rhythm as if it hadn't been months since they'd seen each other and they weren't both completely different people now, "you look more like you're walking away at a leisurely pace."

Leon threw his head back and laughed. "Maybe I am. I'm always willing to start running again, though. Have you ever been out of Detroit?" 

Sixty was the one to laugh, now, and it was as if this was a completely different year, a completely different  _ world _ , from just a few hours ago. 

"Hell no." He didn't elaborate; Leon got the sense he wasn't saying everything about what had happened to him between Cyberlife Tower and the dogfighting ring, but that was alright, that was a conversation for another time.

"We could go," Leon said, "just get out of here. Canada, maybe. Or East, to Vermont. Get a cabin out in the woods, where Cyberlife can't get us." And then, "oh, hell, I'm making it sound like we've known each other forever." 

Sixty smiled at him, unbelievably softly. "But we have." 

Leon looked back at the android, found his gaze resting on soft brown eyes. 

"But we have," he echoed.


	14. Shot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warnings: needles

Nines was, once again, infuriated with himself. He shouldn’t have been feeling so angry, should have been more in control of his turbulent  _ human _ emotions, but that wasn’t the main concern. By now, he was used to emotions. To anger. To not always being in control, but in a different way than when Amanda had been the pilot in his head. 

He was bothered not  _ because  _ he was angry, but because his anger was foolish. He was working himself up, getting his stress levels dangerously high and then letting them bounce around erratically, but even worse, it was all over such a small thing, really nothing more than an inconvenience. 

The syringe lay on the bathroom counter in his apartment, glinting under bright overhead lights, as if taunting Nines. It had been uncapped, and was now capped again. The gleaming blue liquid inside its uncomfortably spacious chamber could have been mistaken for ordinary thirium by the untrained eye, but Nines knew better. It was an enhanced form of the stuff, highly concentrated and even more highly volatile, used to rejuvenate certain interior parts that, every once in a while, needed maintenance. And of course he couldn’t ingest it in pill form, or even have a tech crack open one of his numerous panels for interior access. No, it had to go  _ through  _ a special damn joint in his special damn chassis, all the way to a  _ special damn organ _ . 

And as it turned out, Nines did not like needles. Nobody in their right mind would, but he particularly disliked the prospect of sticking one into his own body. And it was a large, thick needle to boot, not like the small ones the doctors used when Hank got his flu shot. 

Logically, he should have been able to do it. He could preconstruct every possible outcome from a flawless shot to a botched one where the needle broke off inside his body or he misjudged the location of the injection site. He knew exactly what he had to do, and had followed procedure perfectly up to this point. But he wanted, maybe even  _ needed _ , to get help. 

He couldn’t do this. 

Correction: He couldn’t do this by himself. 

But Hank was busy, and Connor was too. That left Gavin, but what did he know about needles? Nines quickly perused his memories for any information about Gavin’s medical history, and quickly remembered that Gavin had been self-injecting testosterone for something like twenty years now. He could surely help. 

Nines looked back at the needle one more time, went to pick it up and hold it over the little joint on his waist, but his hand faltered. Shook a little. He never faltered, never shook. This was wrong. 

He put the needle down again and turned to look in the mirror, at the single sticky note Connor had left there as a sort of brotherly housewarming gift. 

_ Your emotions are valid!  _ it read. If he didn’t know better, Nines would have thought it were passive-aggressive, but it was just Connor being, well... _ Connor _ . They were two emotionally stunted walking disasters, and they knew each other so well. For this, Nines was thankful. 

He turned away from the mirror with that thought held in his mind, and looked through the doorway and out the living room window instead, over the Detroit skyline, as he sent Gavin a text. 

** _Tin can: _ ** _ Can you come over? I require assistance. _

** _Rat man: _ ** _ oh shit did you hurt yrself again  _

** _Tin can:_ ** _ No, I’m just having trouble with something that you may be able to help with. _

** _Rat man: _ ** _ well that’s not fucking ominous or anything,,,,,gimme like five mins to get some shit ill be there soon :v _

** _Tin can: _ ** _ Thanks, Gavin. I really appreciate it. _

Precisely seven minutes and thirty-six seconds passed before Nines heard keys jangling outside, followed by the sound of the apartment door opening—he’d given Gavin one of his spare keys weeks ago, after they both realized they spent more time at each other’s apartments than not. They still hadn’t talked about that, whatever it was. 

Whatever they had. 

Now wasn’t the time, Nines told himself as he, not bothering to get up, responded to Gavin’s loud greeting with an “I’m in the bathroom!” 

Gavin quickly appeared in the doorway, and he grimaced as soon as he spotted the needle. 

“Don’t like needles?” he asked, and Nines sighed in response. Gavin knew how to read him, verbal or not, because he immediately came over to lean on the counter. There was no toilet in the bathroom, and only a shower, so he had nowhere to sit. 

“I don’t know why I can’t do it,” Nines admitted. “I just...it’s fine in theory. I can preconstruct  _ every  _ step of it, and it all makes sense―hell, I don’t mind needles any more than the average person―but then I’m holding it in my hand and I just can’t make myself do it. Something stops me. And there’s...Amanda isn’t here anymore to override my self-preservation protocols, and that’s not even what’s stopping me.” He glared at nothing in particular. “Logically, I need to give myself this shot, but I can’t psych myself up.” 

He paused, looked over at Gavin. He was half expecting Gavin to be rolling his eyes, or at least visibly bored, but his partner was listening attentively. More so, he looked like he understood, which of  _ course _ he did, that was why Nines had called him over in the first place. 

“I get that, man,” Gavin said earnestly, “I totally get it. What’s this for, if you don’t mind me asking?” 

“It’s an enhanced form of thirium. It keeps some of my more... _ experimental  _ features working over long periods of time, but it has to be replenished on occasion.” Such were the curses of being a prototype.

Gavin hummed quietly as he picked up the syringe with the careful, experienced grip of someone who’s been around needles for years and years. “D’you call me ‘cause you trust me, or because I know my way around a needle?” he asked, turning his gaze from the shifting blue liquid inside the syringe back to Nines’ face. 

If it had been anyone else, Nines would have thought they were being standoffish, but it was Gavin. He was serious, but at the same time he was just joking around. 

“Both,” Nines said. It was the truth. 

Gavin cracked a smile at that. “Well, I’ll tell you this much. I’m not gonna do it for you.”

Nines deflated a little. He hadn’t been sure what to expect, but a rejection of assistance wasn’t it. “What do you mean?”

Gavin set down the syringe and fixed his gaze on Nines. “When I first started self-injecting, I was sixteen years old. I didn’t mind, y’know, getting my vaccinations and all that, but I  _ hated _ the idea of sticking a needle in my leg every other week. Had to psych myself up almost to the point of crying every time for the first, hell, six months or so. It got better over time, I got more used to it, started trusting myself more, but you don’t have to worry about being, well,  _ worried _ .” He stopped, cocking his head, silently asking if he was making sense.

“I…” Nines trailed off despite himself. “I understand that, I suppose.”

“My point is, you get used to it. I don’t know if you’ll  _ have _ to get used to it, or how often you’ll have to do this, but it’s good to trust yourself. I tried to make Tina give me the shot a few times, but she refused. Said I needed to learn how to do it myself. I was pissed at first, but I realized she wouldn’t always be there to do it for me. It’s the same thing. I could give you the shot, I know we trust each other enough for that, but you’ve gotta face your fears sooner or later.”

Nines felt his lips curl downwards into a pensive look, eyebrows furrowing, LED shifting to yellow. “I suppose you’re right. And anyhow, I won’t have to do this too often, perhaps once or twice a year, so it can’t be all that terrible.”

“That’s the spirit,” Gavin said, crossing his arms. “You want me to hang around?”

Nines didn’t even have to hesitate. That question had one answer, always the one. “Of course I do,” he said. 

His hands shook when he picked up the needle again, but Gavin talked him down from the ledge of panic, talked him through it, all without moving to physically help him a single time, and once the needle pierced the joint in his chassis, it went through. His synthskin peeled away as soon as it touched his skin, making room for the thing to go in. It felt strange, not  _ painful _ but so indescribably odd. Part of Nines had been expecting it to snap, but it wasn’t an ordinary needle, it was specially designed to be used by androids―the engineers may have sent him out into the field with features not fully integrated into his system, but they made sure those features wouldn’t fail completely.

The blue slowly filtered out of the syringe and through his chassis, a shock of cold emanating from his waist where it went in, and then, after just a few moments, it was done. 

It was over. 

He pulled the syringe out, only cringing a little bit at the way it warped his chassis just slightly as it came out, at the way he felt it slide against his actuators. There was a slight hole at the injection site, barely perceptible even to Nines, but his self-healing protocols kicked in almost instantly. Hardly a drop of the enhanced thirium made it to the surface before the hole had closed up, and it simply melted into his skin with a strange fizzing sensation as his synthskin came back into sight. 

He capped the needle and carefully placed it into the plastic bottle he was using in lieu of a sharps collection box. Inhaled maybe deeper than was necessary. Exhaled, relishing in the way his thirium pumped a little faster and his synthetic lungs pulsed more strongly for just a moment. 

“See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Gavin asked, and Nines leaned against the wall where he was standing, looking sideways at his partner. His  _ friend _ . His maybe-something-more, but that was for another time.

Nines smiled weakly. “I would hate to do it again, but you were right. It was tolerable, I suppose.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is this me projecting? absolutely


	15. Forced Reboot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: canon + temporary MCD (it's Simon), mentions of an IV
> 
> This is a first for me: Markus' POV and Simarkus! I'm quite the Simarkus fan but have never written them, so this was fun C:  
Dedicated to the fantastic [Sabrina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeeWithMyOwneyes) for always sending the AWBB server top tier Simarkus content and also for just generally being a very cool and funky person!!

Markus was normally impervious to all but the most extreme temperatures, but today he felt, for the first time in a long, long time, cold. Biting, slicing cold.

And it wasn’t a product of the snow that had started earlier today and had only worsened in the hours since. No, it had to do with the PL600, smart and kind and so much more, who had died in that snow, and who he was currently carrying off the battlefield.

Simon was limp in Markus’ arms.

He was light, too, light enough that Markus almost felt as if Simon’s body would just float off into the blizzard if he didn’t hold on tightly enough. His thirium pump―his heart, the one that belonged in Simon’s chest―beat fast and strong, powering Markus through the storm as he staggered, one foot in front of the other, towards his comrades.

They were out there, waiting, scattered around Detroit, most of them sheltered from the storm, but not Markus. Simon’s body was beginning to cool, biocomponents coming dangerously close to frosting over, and Markus couldn’t have let himself just... _ leave _ Simon there. It was ironic; he’d let himself leave Simon at Stratford alive and armed, but now, dead, he couldn’t just let go. 

The wind whistled, and Markus nearly stumbled, but he kept going. Years of caring for Carl had perfected his carrying technique, and he held on to Simon like a lifeline. North and Josh were elsewhere; where, he didn’t know, but he knew they’d convinced (and possibly threatened, on North’s part) a Cyberlife technician to get them parts, to help them out. Markus had initially been concerned when North had sent him a message simply reading  _ We got you a heart for Simon _ , but she insisted it had been ethically acquired.

Though, a while later, when Markus and Simon―Simon’s corpse, technically―reached the clinic that part of Jericho and a good number of recently freed androids had occupied in the last few hours, and the Cyberlife tech, clad in a dark hoodie, pulled the thirium pump out of an unmarked cooler, Markus wasn’t so sure it had been  _ legally _ acquired. 

But the tech, who refused to give his name and looked slightly skittish (albeit determined) the entire time, insisted that the blame, if there even was to be any, would rest entirely on him, and that it was no matter,  _ no _ he didn’t need to be paid back,  _ really _ , it was no problem at all, and could North please let him work in peace?

Markus, for his part, ached with every atom in his body to be closer to Simon, to do more than watch from the other side of the room after he’d laid Simon’s body―limp, prone, cold―on the operating table and let the tech get started. But the tech insisted, with a wave of a shaky hand, that he needed space. Judging by the wires he had begun to hook up to Simon, and judging by the intravenous thirium refill he was preparing for before he put in the new pump, this was not an exaggeration. 

But still, every second of the procedure was agonizingly slow. Markus had never seen an android experience what was by all means a forced reboot, not after this level of loss and certainly not after this much time shut down, but the tech seemed adamant that it could be done. 

“There might be some memory corruption,” he warned, “and I may have to reinstall some basic programs, but that shouldn’t be too big a problem. I have the resources to do so.”

“Why are you doing this?” North asked from beside Markus for what must have been the hundredth time, and the man simply shook his head.

“Look, you don’t need to know who I am. But I care...about your cause. I’ve just been watching from the sidelines most of the time, but this...this is something I can do. I want to help. And anyhow, I saw what happened at Stratford. I saw what happened after Jericho tried to raid the Cyberlife store. I can tell you both care about him.” The tech nodded at Simon, still dead, still beyond Markus’ reach.

Markus wondered if there was an afterlife for androids. What it was like. What determined how far gone you had to be before you couldn’t come back. If Simon was too far gone to come back. 

He sighed. Forced a half-hearted smile at the tech. “Thank you.” North was smiling too, more natural. She would have been such a good leader of the movement, even if they had gone the violent route she had wanted.

“Of course. It’s the least I could do. And, Markus?”

The way he said it, as if he knew Markus, made the RK200 stop for a moment. Given his recent status as a public figure, it wasn’t really surprising, but, well, it still struck Markus in an odd way after years and years of Carl being the one who was in the public eye.

“Yes?”

“Before everything that happened in the last week, I mean, I sort of knew there would be something eventually, it’s complicated, but...seeing your message at Stratford was really what did it for me. Made me decide I had to do something. That I couldn’t just be on the sidelines forever. So...thank you. All of you, but especially you.”

Somewhere in Markus’ chest, inside the heart that wasn’t his, a weight lifted off of him. He felt, suddenly, that he could breathe again, and with this realization noticed that he had been carrying around a tight, crushing feeling right up until this moment. It was still there, but there was something less desperate and more... _ yearning _ about it. As if he had been longing for years, and maybe he had.

Watching the tech go back to work, Markus almost felt at peace. Simon would come back. 

And then he immediately felt a pang of remorse. Why was he so happy that Simon was coming back? At risk to this man’s job, at risk of time he and North could be using to make sure the other survivors were all alright, to start cleaning up this impossible mess that had been made in the span of just a few hours?

North seemed to sense his distress, because she gently laid a hand on his arm, and spoke.

“We’re doing the right thing, Markus,” she said. “It’s not selfish when he was taken before his time. He’d want to be here, to help us build a new future.”

Oh, North. Ever poetic, ever well-spoken. Markus was so glad to have her by his side, and, well, he supposed that what she said made sense. She and Josh were important, and Simon as well. Jericho wouldn’t be Jericho without all three of them.

So he waited, although it was tantalizingly slow, and when North leaned in to tell him she was going to go check in with some of the other androids that had been steadily streaming into the clinic all day, he smiled and bade her farewell before returning to exactly where he’d been before: watching Simon. 

The preparation was the lengthiest thing, and once everything had been set up, taking almost forty minutes due to the processing time of the thirium IV, the tech turned to tell Markus that the rest of it would be quick.

Simon had died quickly, and he would come back quickly. 

Markus had his doubts; lingering, foolish whispers of what could go wrong, preconstructions he didn’t want to see. But he ignored these thoughts. Everything would go fine. He wasn’t making a mistake, he told himself. He knew the old human saying of myths and legends, that nothing dead ever comes back right, but nobody had ever brought back a human from the dead. 

And this was different, anyways. That didn’t apply to androids, who―for all their humanity―did not have the same physiology as humans. Wires could be reconnected, thirium replenished, biocomponents replaced. 

Memories corrupted, too, but Markus could only hope that his Simon would escape that fate. 

_ His _ Simon?

That was new. Well, another thing to reflect on. Perhaps, something to talk about after Simon had woken up, and gotten his bearings. 

As if on cue, Simon’s last words played over in Markus’ head:  _ Our hearts are compatible. Set our people free, Markus.  _

Aside from the obvious cause of the twisting in Markus’ chest―that Simon had died, and with Markus’ name on his tongue―Markus had understood what Simon meant about their hearts, their biocomponents, being compatible on a purely physical level. But neither of them were brand-new models, not like Connor, for example. They’d been around, and they more or less understood human customs. They dealt in idioms, and in double meanings, from time to time.

Had Simon meant something else? Had he, knowing that he would never have to face the potential embarrassment of going through on it, or perhaps in that delirious state of spat-out truthfulness that near-death puts one in, confessed what Markus didn’t want to think for fear that it would disappear as soon as he acknowledged it?

“I’m putting in the new pump,” the tech said from across the room, drawing Markus back out of his musings and into the real world.

Markus drew closer to the operating table without even really willing his limbs to do so. It was as if the heart― _ his _ heart, now―were beckoning him back to Simon, back to its original host, back to the the target of the adoration blossoming in Markus’ artificial sternum.

Simon’s synthetic skin was gone, not just on bare torso but on his entire body, hidden away, his chassis glinting under white lights. The IV line was gone, parts of his chassis tinted blue from the excess of new thirium that was sitting in his veins, waiting for a pump to circulate it before it simply evaporated. The tech had a thirium pump in two gloved hands, shiny and new, and he turned it over like he was inspecting for damage before leaning over Simon and inserting it into his chest. 

There was a singular moment in which Markus felt that the entire room was holding its breath: the dead one, who did not need to breathe; Markus, who did not need to breathe but did so anyways; the human technician, who absolutely did need to breathe but was, in fact, neglecting to do so at this very moment. 

The tech stood back and, after a few seconds, let out a relieved exhale as Simon’s chassis shifted to protect the new biocomponent, accepting it into his system. He then held up a small rectangular device, what looked to be a high-end portable computer. Holding it over Simon’s torso and then slowly moving it up the length of his neck, finally resting over his head, the tech seemed satisfied with his results. He moved to begin packing up the supplies he’d brought with him, minus the heart and the thirium it was now pushing around in Simon’s veins.

“Doesn’t look like there’ll be much memory corruption, surprisingly. Vitals are all fine. He’s gonna take a few minutes to wake up, but he should be fine,” the tech said, sounding incredibly nonchalant considering the gravity of the situation. Whoever he was, Markus reasoned, this attitude spoke volumes about his experience with androids. He was confident.

“Thank you so much,” Markus said, earnestly, and the man’s face reddened slightly. 

“Thank  _ you _ ,” he said, “for trusting me enough to let me do this. And, ah―” he handed Markus a scrap of paper, a phone number hastily scribbled on it “―if any problems come up, just give me a call. I’ve got one hell of a job these days, ever since deviancy started spreading, but I’ll do my best.” He smiled. “Good luck.”

The technician, having collected his things, pulled his hood over his head, produced a pair of sunglasses from somewhere in his pockets, and nodded once at Markus before plunking them down on the bridge of his nose and leaving.

Markus turned to Simon, and right on cue, in an act seeming to be almost miraculous, though Markus knew it had simply been a matter of time and resources, Simon began to rise. Or rather, his chest did, rising and falling in slight, regular tremors as his new heart shuddered and then, finally, began to beat.

His synthskin reappeared, slowly fading in to cover his chassis, and Markus’ lips curled downwards at the corners as he was finally able to make out the details of Simon’s expression, a faraway look of slight distress, like he were stuck in a bad dream.

Slowly, though, as Markus watched, the furrow in his brows faded, and the tension in his forehead loosened. 

Markus lost his breath when Simon opened his eyes, bright and blue and  _ alive _ . He blinked, met Markus’ multicolored gaze, blinked again. 

“Markus,” he said, almost but not quite a question. He had died with Markus’ name on his tongue, and that was how he came back to life. “Are our people free? Did you succeed?”

Markus reached out to take Simon’s hand, and pulled him to his feet. “We’ve started, but we have a long way to go. We can’t do it without you, though.  _ I _ can’t do it without you.”

He felt that he should probably let go of Simon’s hand at this point, but Simon seemed to sense the longing Markus was no doubt radiating, because he gripped Markus’ hand tighter.

“Thank you, Markus,” he said, eyes cast forward, brows and lips turned upwards as if trying to convey how much he was undoubtedly feeling in that moment. “For coming back for me.”

“Of course,” Markus breathed, suddenly aware of how close their faces were. Every point at which their bodies touched―and there were many such points―was a live wire, waiting to spark. He could just tilt his head forward a little bit, and Simon’s lips were right there, painted with a smile. 

He wanted to paint Simon, that was another thing. When this was over, when they no longer had to fear for their lives more and more with every passing day, he would set up a studio with big windows that let all the rare Detroit sunlight filter in, and Markus would paint Simon in all his beauty, all his splendor. 

“Of course I came back for you,” Markus said, and before he could lose the courage, like a lion, that had suddenly seized him, “I love you.”

The words came so easily, like that time Carl had asked him to take up a paintbrush and it had finally, in shaky hands, touched the canvas. He’d been worried, worried of rejection or of just admitting it at all, but it was natural in retrospect.

The worry came back for a flash, a split second, as he saw Simon’s gaze waver, but the press of lips on his own a moment later told him everything he needed to know. And, Markus realized, he felt warm again. Perhaps it had begun the second he stepped inside, and perhaps the cold had only been chased off by Simon’s return, but he knew from the tender golden light blooming in his chest that he was warm again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is the nameless tech Leon?  
;)


	16. Shocked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 16/30, Shocked. Reed900 for this one.
> 
> Warnings: gunshot wound, blood (thirium), somewhat graphic depiction of a wound and slightly gory things. See also: Gavin panicking.

As many disasters tend to do, it started with a bullet. A direct hit, right on his forearm where the only armor he wore was his black leather jacket, it shattered Nines’ chassis upon impact and seared a hole through his jacket, and no more than a fraction of a second had passed before he was crouched under the nearest cover he could find, tearing off his jacket. The bullet tipped out of the gaping hole in his arm and dropped to the ground as he shrugged off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. The thing was barely recognizable now, deformed and partially melted. 

Of course. His chassis was designed to resist high pressure, which didn’t mean bullets would bounce off, but at the right angle, and with the right force...the synthskin of his entire arm had receded, glitching along the edges, and sharp shards of carbotanium had completely separated from his body along with some of his inner parts, falling to the ground like the artificial gore they were.

As for the entry wound, it resembled one that might be seen in a human, but the outer layers of flesh hadn’t moved to enclose the bullet like they might there. Instead, the pressure of the bullet had quite literally shattered part of his chassis, and everything it protected was visible now. Instead of viscera, Nines had wires, snaking up his arm, some transmitting thirium and some transmitting data in an older, more traditional manner. Some of these were punctured, leaking blue everywhere, but they remained mostly intact. The primary issue became apparent quickly: until he could get a replacement piece of chassis, which would require some heavy-duty welding, Nines’ innards were exposed to the world. Much like in the case of a human walking around without skin, or better yet with a vicious wound, this was not safe. 

Electricity sparked around exposed wires. Slender fingers poked and prodded inside the wound, rapidly becoming stained with blue, and Nines licked some of the stuff off his fingers just out of habit and to get it out of the way before he had realized what he was doing. 

His HUD presented a reading of his vitals, not that he needed to analyze a sample of his own blood to see those, and he swept it away. The data were less than ideal, but it could be worse. It would have to do for now.

He was so caught up in attempting to effectively construct a plan that it was by instinct instead of by actually noticing his surroundings that he finally realized Gavin had approached him. Bullets were still firing in the distance, the regular rapid-fire pattern of an automatic turret puncturing the sound of Nines’ own heavy breathing. 

Nines turned as Gavin, who was sprinting towards him, ducked and slid to a stop next to him, behind the cover they’d found. Gavin was shaking, face scraped up and bleeding a little, but his vitals indicated no major damage. 

“Are you alright?” Nines asked, wiping one bloody hand―the good one―on his jeans before moving to place it on Gavin’s shoulder. Gavin holstered his gun and began to reach towards Nines, going to look at his forearm. He brushed off Nines’ hand and instead picked up his other arm with a gentleness that Nines once would have called uncharacteristic. Now, he knew it was just a part of Gavin’s personality that he didn’t always show.

“Am  _ I _ alright?” Gavin hissed, tone hushed as if the automatic turret could hear them and would somehow pinpoint their location that way. Nines, for his part, was rather confident that the turret was not actually that advanced, but that didn’t change the fact that it had a seemingly endless supply of ammo and that one of its bullets had made its mark in Nines’ arm.

“You have a fucking  _ hole _ in your arm, Nines,” Gavin continued.

Nines gritted his teeth. His self-healing protocols had masked the pain up until this point, but they could no longer combat both the thirium loss and the very apparent exposure of his innards to foreign objects. Something sharp, and hot, and accompanied by a plethora of error messages, pierced through his skull, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He could feel the electricity sparking and rippling through his wiring, jumping from his conductive chassis to the even more conductive thirium, and it didn’t  _ hurt _ in the same way as he had become used to hurt feeling, but he hated it with a passion. The sensation was worse than that of the bullet ripping through him, both painful and profoundly unsettling. Something about it was  _ wrong _ , volatile, as if the electricity could hit the wrong wire and shut him down at any moment. 

It probably could.

“To be fair,” he said through clenched teeth, snarling through the pain and simultaneously cursing his ability as a deviant to even feel it at all, “there’s only one hole. It didn’t pass through the entire diameter of my arm.”

“ _ Idiot _ ,” Gavin replied, the anger in his voice masking the terror and stress they both knew was really there. They both jolted as the turret, making its usual rounds, fired a quick succession of bullets into the crates they were hiding behind, but it quickly moved on. One more sweep of the area, for good measure. Nines’ vision was beginning to blur around the edges, and he blinked the feeling away.

“Do you have any first aid products, Gavin?” Nines growled, now pressing his back against the crates and clutching his upper arm as if it would dilute the pain―it didn’t, but the uncomfortable sensation of blood loss, combined with that of Nines’ nails digging through his crumpled sleeves, allowed him a minor distraction. 

“Working on it,” Gavin replied, beginning to dig through his pockets. They hadn’t brought much, not expecting an automatic turret of all things to be guarding the target of this investigation, but Gavin was always one to bet on the worst. After a moment, he produced a few bandaids, all of which looked like they had spent at least the last few months in the depths of his pockets, and a tube of antibacterial ointment. 

Nines shook his head, and said―judging by the look on Gavin’s face―what they both already knew. “The bandaids might work if it were a smaller wound. Can you―actually―wait―no.”

He was vaguely aware of the fact that his sentences were beginning to lose coherence, words jaggedly put together in ways that didn’t match up, but he couldn’t be bothered to care. Not in this state of mind. 

“The bandaids. On my thirium lines.”

Nines reached inside his arm again and gently tugged on one of the transparent wires, stained bright blue inside and out. A wave of dizziness came over him as it leaked out even more thirium, but he’d gotten the point across.

“Jesus, Nines. Are you sure that’s safe?” Gavin was peeling open one of the bandaids, but he looked about as happy about it as Nines felt. 

Nines smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s not. But it should staunch the bleeding for long enough to sort something else out.”

Gavin shook his head. “When we get out of here, and you get that hole fixed up, you and I are going to have a talk about self-preservation.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” Nines said, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a soft smile―real, this time. They were falling back into their usual bicker again, as they did so often. 

Gavin scoffed, but his hands were gentle as he wiped the exterior of Nines’ thirium lines and wiring dry, and began to patch up the holes puckering the things. In a stroke of miraculous chance, he had enough bandaids to cover all the major holes, but blue still stained the tan cloth of the bandaids, and the brightly colored insulation on his wiring was beginning to fray in multiple places. Nines knew very well, perhaps better than Gavin knew (not that he was going to let on the extent of the damage, he didn’t want to worry Gavin any more), what this meant for him. 

“Do you have anything to cover the entire hole with?” Nines asked, eyeing his jacket where it lay on the ground. He wasn’t adverse to leaving it here if he had to, despite the cold, because he could vividly imagine what would happen if a loose thread snagged on the edges of the jagged hole in his chassis, or if a wire tangled with one. 

Then again, it might be worse if he tried to just make a run for it, and a wire snagged directly on something. The jacket wasn’t ideal armor, but it was the best he had for now. 

“I mean, I have my shirt, but it’s gonna be concave if I wrap it around that hole.” Something flashed in Gavin’s eyes as his gaze flicked around the scene, searching, and Nines returned a hand to his shoulder. Even without checking his partner’s vitals, Nines could see that Gavin was panicking. 

“Deep breaths, Gavin. It’s going to be okay.”

“Is it?  _ Is it? _ You say that, but we’re sitting here and you  _ literally _ have a bandaid on a bullet hole, and that fucking turret is still going and I can’t remember the last time I told my boyfriend I love him!” 

Nines hadn’t been expecting  _ that _ . He tilted his head. “You can say it now.”

Gavin sighed. He dropped his head to his chest and sighed again. “I’m sorry I snapped, Nines, I’m just terrified, and this is a disaster, and I love you too much to watch this happen knowing I did nothing.”

“You did do something.”

Gavin’s head snapped back up. Ivy eyes met Nines’ own, terrified. He was shaking again, under Nines’ hand. “Maybe I did, but maybe it wasn’t enough.”

Nines gently squeezed his shoulder; didn’t say anything. For once, he didn’t know what to say. And anyhow, it was a tried-and-true interrogation technique that waiting to respond often made people try to fill the space with extra information. He felt that Gavin had something else to say, and that this might make him say it. 

“Be honest with me,” Gavin said, and Nines almost regretted that he was right, “are you going to be alright?”

Nines looked at his vitals. He had to force an override to prevent his LED from turning red.

“I can’t say yet. For now, we just need to get out of here.”

Gavin chanced looking out from behind their cover. The turret had stopped, evidently working on motion sensors and nothing more. 

He picked up a particularly large chunk of Nines’ chassis that had fallen to the ground. “Can I throw this? Check the motion sensors?”

Something clicked in Nines’ processors, and he reached out for the piece of carbotanium. Gavin wordlessly handed it over, brows furrowed in confusion, but he quickly realized what Nines was doing. 

Nines held the thing over the hole in his arm. From a certain angle, it could have been placed inside the hole, forced to settle in there with the wires or even used to dislodge more of them. From another angle, it could rest over the top of his chassis like a horrible, absolutely horrible stint. 

“So, you were saying something about ripping your shirt?”

“Jesus,” Gavin muttered, but he was already moving to tear a strip off the cotton tee, and he helped wrap it around the chunk of Nines’ chassis. Bandage completed, it jutted out of his arm rather strangely, protruding in a way that made Gavin look equally uncomfortable to how Nines felt, but it would have to do. 

Nines dusted off his jacket and pulled it on. 

He picked up the bullet, not bothering to dust that off, and smiled at Gavin as he began to roll the deformed hunk of metal over his fingers much in the same way Connor toyed with that quarter of his. He considered throwing it to test the motion sensors, but decided instead to deposit it in his pocket. It was a nice souvenir, a testament both to his human vulnerability and his mechanical strength. 

“You got a plan?” Gavin hissed from beside him. 

Nines’ LED turned yellow as he began to scan their surroundings, running a preconstruction. He closed his eyes. 

By his side, a hand found his, and he flinched slightly as the sensation of contact ran up his arm and through still-damaged wires, but he didn’t break away from the familiar feeling of Gavin’s hand in his own. Gavin gently squeezed his hand, and Nines squeezed back.

“I’m working on it,” Nines said.


End file.
